THE  LIBRARY 

OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 
COMMODORE  BYRON  MCCANDLESS 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 
CAMDEN,  N.  J. 

BY 

HOWARD  M.  COOPER 


A  revision  and  amplification  of  a  paper  read  before  the 
Camden  County  Historical  Society,  June  13,  1899 


With  an  Introduction  by 

HON.  CHARLES  VAN  DYKE  JOLINE 


CAMDEN,  N.  J. : 

HORACE  B.  KETLER 

1909 


Copyrighted  1908  and  1909 

by 
HORACE  B.  KETI,ER 


Printed  by  Illustrations  by 

SINNICKSON  CHEW  &  SONS  Co.,  SPENCER  G.  EASTON, 

Camden,  N.  J.  Camden,  N.  J. 


F 


3fatrotwctton 


If  one  were  to  seek  the  genesis  of  Camden 
he  would  not  find  it  in  the  visit  of  the  sturdy 
Dutchman,  DeVries,  nor  of  any  explorer  who 
followed,  nor  in  the  voyages  of  those  in  search 
of  a  land  where  they  might  increase  their 
wordly  possessions,  but  rather  would  he  find 
it  in  souls  devoted  to  principle,  and  primed 
with  courage  never  to  yield ;  in  a  quiet  contest 
for  right  and  equality,  which  knew  no  sub- 
mission. 

In  one  of  his  stories  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
tells  of  a  rider  issuing  from  a  forest  upon  the 
high  road  and  gazing  upon  it  as  it  runs  down 
hill  before  him,  joining  road  after  road,  skirt- 
ing the  sea  and  passing  through  city  after  city 
to  the  farthest  end  of  Europe.  May  we  not 
picture  some  such  person,  some  one  denied 
that  which  he  conceived  to  be  right  and  de- 
termined to  seek  a  refuge  elsewhere,  looking 
out  upon  the  high  road,  and  meditating  upon 
where  it  will  lead  him.  As  it  reaches  from 
him  it  skirts  the  seashore,  and  suddenly  melts 
away  and  is  lost  to  sight,  for  it  has  taken  its 
course  across  the  "deep,  dark,  blue  ocean" 
leading  to  a  spot  upon  the  banks  of  the  Dela- 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

ware,  and  there  ending  in  the  founding  of  a 
home  in  another  clime  and  upon  alien  soil. 

Thus  it  was  that  William  Cooper,  leaving 
his  native  land  and  tarrying  for  nearly  a  year 
at  Burlington,  came  to  Camden  about  1680, 
where  he  built  a  home  at  Pyne  Poynte. 

Ruskin  asserts  that  "all  the  pure  and  noble 
arts  of  peace  are  founded  on  war,"  and  that 
"it  is  the  foundation  of  all  the  high  virtues  and 
faculties  of  man."  This  may  or  may  not  be 
true,  but  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  all  great 
results  proceed  from  contest  and  struggle  and 
it  may  as  fairly  be  said  that  to  contest  and 
struggle,  not  of  deeds  of  arms,  but  for  the 
maintenance  of  rights,  may  we  trace  the  begin- 
ning of  our  city.  Though  this  be  true,  still  its 
inception  was  as  peaceful  as  is  the  bosom  of  the 
river  which  flows  past  its  door. 

At  this  point  I  am  tempted,  in  a  few  bold 
strokes,  to  tell  of  the  evolution  of  the  wilder- 
ness into  a  city,  of  the  felling  of  the  primeval 
forest,  of  the  growth  of  roads  and  streets  from 
little  pathways,  of  the  founding  of  new  homes, 
the  advent  of  new  faces,  and  of  the  innumer- 
able things  which  gradually  but  surely  alter 
the  face  of  the  land,  but  were  I  to  attempt  it 
I  fear  that  the  good  people  who  have  the 
courage  to  read  this  introduction  would  accuse 
me  of  theft  of  the  idea  from  Hawthorne's 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

charming  story  "Main  Street,"  of  the  facts 
from  Mr.  Cooper's  delightful  and  instructive 
sketch. 

A  descendant  of  the  William  Cooper  above 
referred  to,  Mr.  Howard  M.  Cooper,  has  given 
to  the  citizens  of  Camden  a  work  of  great 
value,  for  in  it  he  has  recorded  many  facts 
known  to  few  besides  himself  and  it  suggests 
the  following  thought:  We  now  have  daily 
papers  giving  the  current  life  of  our  city,  but 
there  is  much  that  rests  alone  in  the  memory  of 
our  citizens  that  should  be  saved  for  the  future 
historian.  In  Holland  there  are  public  archives 
where  historic  facts  may  be  preserved.  It 
surely  would  be  of  value  for  such  a  depository 
to  be  established  in  one  of  our  public  libraries. 
Encouragement  should  then  be  given  to  our 
citizens  to  reduce  to  writing  their  recollections 
of  past  and  present  events,  and,  being  safely 
kept  where  access  could  be  had  to  them  at  all 
times,  who  can  tell  but  that  they  might  be  an 
inspiration  to  some  one  in  the  future  to  con- 
tinue the  labor  of  love  and  affection  so  admir- 
ably begun  by  Mr.  Cooper. 

January  22,  1909. 

CHARLES  VAN  DYKE  JOLINE. 


LORD   CAMDEN 


Chapter  i 

In  1618  Lord  De  La  Warr,  sailing  along 
the  Atlantic  coast  on  his  return  to  Virginia 
from  England,  died  at  sea  opposite  the  mouth 
of  "a  goodly  and  noble  river,"  which,  as  a 
perpetual  monument  to  his  memory,  forever 
indicating  the  place  of  his  death,  was  thence 
called  the  Delaware.1  Sailing  up  this  wide  river 
in  1631,  noting  the  creeks  and  estuaries  empty- 
ing into  it,  the  Dutch  commander,  De  Vries, 
discovered  about  one  hundred  miles  from 
its  mouth,  on  the  eastern  shore,  a  large 
thickly  wooded  island,  which  he  called  Jacques 
Eylandt.  The  Swedes,  coming  some  seven  or 
eight  years  after,  observing  the  same  isle,  with 
much  better  taste  called  it  by  its  Indian  name, 
Aquikanasra,  an  island  destined  to  be,  a 
century  and  a  half  later,  the  site  of  the  town 
of  Camden.  By  the  concurrent  testimony  of 
the  early  Dutch  and  Swedish  writers  it  was 
bounded  on  the  west  and  north  by  the  Dela- 
ware; on  the  east  by  what  the  Indians  called 
the  Asoroches  river,  the  Dutch  the  Timmerkill, 
the  Swedes  the  Hiorte-Kilen — our  Cooper's 
creek ;  and  on  the  south  by  the  Ouinquorenning 
of  the  Indians,  the  Graef  Ernest  of  the  Dutch 
— our  Newton  creek.2 

Whether  these  early  historians  were  abso- 
lutely correct  in  their  geography  or  not,  it  will 
not  seem  impossible  that  the  waters  of  Cooper's 
Creek  once  had  an  outlet  into  Newton  Creek 

i  Barker's  Sketches,  14;  Smith's  Hist.  Va.,  148. 
a  Lindbtrom's  Map,  Vol.  9,  p.  19,  N.  J.  Hist.  Soc. 


8  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

to  any  one  who  will  carefully  observe  the 
topography  of  the  land  along  the  Haddon- 
field  turnpike  about  where  the  White  Horse 
road  branches  off,  and  note  on  the  one  hand  the 
ravine  across  Harleigh  Cemetery,  that,  even 
now,  when  its  upper  end  has  been  filled  for  a 
roadway,  puts  up  almost  to  the  turnpike,  and 
a  little  beyond,  on  the  other  hand,  winding 
through  the  low  land  skirting  the  road,  the 
small  rivulet  that  is  the  head  of  the  north 
branch  of  Newton  Creek,  with  only  the  narrow 
water-shed  along  which  the  Haddonfield  turn- 
pike runs,  dividing  them.  Seeing  this,  and 
recollecting  how  universally  the  cutting  off  the 
forests  lessens  the  rainfall  and  diminishes  the 
streams,  the  observer  will  hesitate  before  accus- 
ing the  early  Dutch  and  Swedish  discoverers 
of  anticipating  Munchausen. 

Though  they  explored,  neither  the  Dutch 
nor  the  Swedes  settled  here  where  the 
Maeroahkong  tribe  of  the  Delaware  Indians 
lived,  as  their  fathers  had  before  them,  undis- 
turbed by  the  fact  that  across  the  great  water 
an  humble  shepherd,  aroused  by  the  light  within 
him  to  God's  call,  was  preaching  the  absolute 
equality  of  man,  and  the  entire  peaceableness 
of  God's  Kingdom,  and  was  drawing  down 
upon  himself  and  upon  those  whose  consciences, 
awakened  by  his  calls,  were  in  numbers  joining 
him,  the  oppression  and  the  ire  of  those  who 
profited  by  caste  and  lived  by  the  sword.  Until 
persecution  in  England  drove  the  Friends  to 
West  Jersey  for  asylum,  these  Indians,  under 
Arasapha,  their  king,  with  their  village  at 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  9 

Cooper's  Point,  were  the  only  inhabitants 
within  our  limits. 

Who  first  of  the  English  emigrants  made 
the  future  Camden.  his  home  is  uncertain,  but 
it  was  probably  Richard  Arnold  or  William 
Cooper.  Few  traces  remain  of  Richard  Arnold, 
who  seems  to  have  left  no  descendants  in  these 
parts.  William  Cooper,  ancestor  of  many 
families  that  still  cluster  about  his  choice  of  a 
home,  came  from  England  in  1679  and  stopped 
for  about  a  year  at  Burlington,  before  he  chose 
his  permanent  residence.  Passing  up  and  down 
the  Delaware,  the  bold  bluff,  heavily  wooded 
with  pine  timber  at  the  point  where  the  river, 
sharply  curving,  receives  the  stream  called  by 
the  Swedes  the  Hiorte-Kilen,  or  Deer  Creek, 
from  the  many  deer  seen  along  its  banks,  and 
along  which  grew  "peach  trees  and  the  sweet 
smelling  sassafras  tree,"  striking  his  fancy,  he 
fixed  upon  it  as  his  future  abode,  and  called  it 
"Pyne  Poynte."  His  name,  however,  soon 
attached  itself  permanently  to  both  point  and 
creek.  He  located  at  Cooper's  Point  in  the 
spring  of  1681,  building  his  house  well  out  on 
the  river's  edge,  just  below  the  mouth  of  the 
creek,  a  site  long  years  ago  washed  away  by 
the  encroaching  tide. 

Recognizing  the  brotherhood  of  the  Indians 
and  their  right  to  the  soil  that  they  and  their 
fathers  hunted  over  and  possessed  undisputed, 
the  commissioners  sent  over  by  the  proprietors 
of  West  Jersey  bought  of  them  their  right  from 
Oldman's  Creek  to  Assunpink,  securing  their 
title  by  three  deeds,  the  earliest  of  which,  dated 


IO  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

September  loth,  1677,  covered  Camden's  terri- 
tory, and  extended  from  Timber  to  Rancocas 
Creek.1  William  Cooper,  further  to  satisfy  the 
tribe  at  Cooper's  Point,  paid  them  for  the  right 
they  still  claimed,  and  received  from  them  a 
deed  executed  by  Tallacca,  their  chief,  and 
witnessed  by  several  of  their  tribe.  Returning 
the  red  man's  trust  and  friendlessness  with  hon- 
esty and  fair  dealing,  Camden's  early  settlers 
found  them  always  friends,  and  no  tales  of 
Indian  massacre  blot  her  history. 

Thus  was  commenced,  at  the  very  outset, 
that  never-varying  policy  of  justness  in  all  her 
dealings  with  the  Indians  that  has  given  to  our 
fair  State  such  enviable  and  exceptional  fame, 
enabling  Samuel  L.  Southard  eloquently  to 
say :  "It  is  a  proud  fact  in  the  history  of  New 
Jersey,  that  every  part  of  her  soil  has  been 
obtained  from  the  Indians  by  fair  and  volun- 
tary purchase  and  transfer,  a  fact  that  no  other 
State  in  the  Union,  not  even  the  land  which 
bears  the  name  of  Penn,  can  boast  of." 

Before  the  settlement  of  our  overshadowing 
neighbor  of  Brotherly  Love,  a  few  other  scat- 
tering Friends,  following  William  Cooper, 
began  to  locate  in  the  neighborhood  of  his 
home;  and  as  they  had  braved  the  perils  of 
the  ocean  and  of  the  wilderness,  and  tore  them- 
selves away  from  all  ties  of  home,  kindred  and 
early  associations,  for  the  boon  of  worshipping 
God  uninterruptedly  in  the  way  that  to  them 
seemed  right,  they  immediately,  though  but  two 
or  three  gathered  in  His  name,  opened  a  meet- 

j  Howe's  Hist.  Coll'n,  pp.  21,  220. 


Of   CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  II 

ing  for  His  worship,  the  first  record  of  which 
is  this  minute  of  the  Monthly  Meeting  held  at 
Thomas  Gardiner's  house,  Burlington,  Seventh 
month  (September)  5th,  1681 :  "Ordered  that 
Friends  of  Pyne  Poynte  have  a  meeting  on 
every  Fourth  day,  and  to  begin  at  the  second 
hour,  at  Richard  Arnold's  house."  Arnold's 
house  stood,  as  shown  on  Thomas  Sharp's  map 
of  A.  D.  1700,  a  short  distance  above  the  mouth 
of  Newton  Creek,  and  thus,  within  its  log 
walls,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  settlement, 
was  the  first  of  Camden's  ever  widening  circle 
of  churches  established.  It  was  the  only 
"meeting"  between  Salem  and  Burlington,  and 
the  third  in  priority  in  West  Jersey,  and  has 
been  kept  up  by  Friends  without  a  lapse  from 
that  time  to  the  present. 

Shortly  afterward  the  meeting  was  held  at 
Pyne  Poynte,  at  the  house  of  William  Cooper, 
a  minister,  and  continued  there  until  the  arrival 
of  the  "Irish  Friends,"  who  settled  at  Newton 
in  the  spring  of  1682,  when,  as  Thomas  Sharp, 
their  historian,  quaintly  says,  "Immediately 
there  was  a  meeting  sett  up  and  kept  at  the 
house  of  Mark  Newbie,  and  in  a  short  time 
it  grew  and  increased,  unto  which  William 
Cooper  and  family,  that  live  at  the  Poynte,  re- 
sorted, and  sometimes  the  meeting  was  kept  at 
his  house,  who  had  been  settled  sometime 
before." 

But  as  the  Newton  Friends  were  much  more 
numerous  than  the  few  scattered  families  about 
the  Poynte,  it  was  more  convenient  to  most  of 
the  members  for  the  place  of  worship  to  be 


12  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

located  at  their  settlement;  and  in  1684  the 
first  building  devoted  to  religious  meetings  in 
Gloucester  county  was  built  on  the  middle 
branch  of  Newton  Creek,  at  what  is  now  West 
Collingswood  Station,  on  the  Reading  Rail- 
road to  Atlantic  City.  It,  and  the  graveyard 
by  its  side,  were  placed  on  the  bank  of  the 
stream,  the  only  available  highway  in  those 
days  of  roadless  forests,  when  the  water  bore 
alike  the  halcyon  voyages  of  youth,  the  grave 
worshippers  and  the  solemn  funeral  train. 

By  1686  quite  a  number  of  emigrants  had 
arrived  in  this  part  of  West  Jersey  and  settled 
about  Red  Bank,  Woodbury,  Arwames  or 
Gloucester,  Newton  and  the  Poynte,  and  felt 
strongly  the  inconvenience  of  having  to  go  all 
the  way  to  Salem  or  Burlington  to  transact 
their  public  business.  Accordingly,  on  the  26th 
of  May,  1686,  the  proprietors,  freeholders  and 
inhabitants  of  the  "Third  and  Fourth  Tenths," 
that  is,  the  territory  between  Pensauken  and 
Oldman's  Creek,  acting  in  the  spirit  of  pure 
democracy,  met  at  Arwames  and  formed  that 
quaintly  curious  frame  of  county  government, 
having  only  ten  short  paragraphs,  that  is  still 
preserved  in  the  original  book  of  minutes,  in 
the  Clerk's  office  of  Gloucester  county,  at 
Woodbury. 

"This  was  the  origin  of  Old  Gloucester,  the 
only  county  in  New  Jersey  that  can  deduce  its 
existence  from  a  direct  and  positive  compact 
between  her  inhabitants."1 

I  Mickle's  Reminiscences,  p.  35. 


0$   CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  13 

The  action  of  the  people  in  thus  forming 
their  county  organization,  without  any  author- 
ity of  the  Legislature,  was,  after  having  been 
indirectly  recognized  in  one  or  two  other  laws, 
directly  sanctioned,  in  1694,  by  an  act  of  the 
Legislature,  establishing  the  boundaries  that 
they  had  themselves  chosen,  and  adopting  their 
title  of  the  County  of  Gloucester. 

The  courts  of  the  county  so  organized  met 
for  ten  years  in  taverns  or  in  private  houses, 
sometimes  at  Red  Bank  and  sometimes  at 
Arwames.  At  the  latter  place,  on  December 
2d,  1689,  they  ordered  "a  goale  or  logg  house 
for  the  securing  of  prisoners,"1  to  be  built. 
And  on  June  ist,  1696,  they  ordered  "a  prison 
twenty  foot  long  and  sixteen  wide,  of  a  suffi- 
sient  heighth  and  strength  made  of  loggs  to 
be  erected  and  builded  at  Gloucester — with  a 
Court  House  over  ye  same  of  convenient 
heighth  and  largeness."  The  first  of  the  series 
of  court  houses  that  has  culminated  in  Cam- 
den's  noble  one  of  to-day. 

A  vivid  reminder  that  the  barbarous  criminal 
punishments  of  England  of  the  seventeenth 
century  were  not  left  behind  them  by  the  emi- 
grants to  New  Jersey  is  found  in  the  minute 
of  that  Court,  of  March  ist,  1691,  that  a  man 
was  found  guilty  of  perjury  and  sentenced  by 
the  jury  "to  pay  twenty  pounds  fine  or  stand 
in  ye  pillory  one  hour.  To  which  ye  bench 
assents,  and  ye  prisoner  chusing  to  stand  in  ye 
pillory  they  award  and  order  the  same  to  be 
in  Gloucester  on  ye  twelfth  day  of  April  next, 

i  Mickle,  p.  37. 


14  HISTORICAL,   SKETCH 

between  ye  hours  of  ten  in  ye  morning  and 
four  in  ye  afternoon."  Equally  striking  is  the 
minute  of  a  little  later  date  that,  "It  is  agreed 
by  this  meeting  that  a  payor  of  substantial 
stocks  be  erected  near  the  prison  with  a  post 
at  each  end,  well  fixed  and  fastened  with  a 
hand  cuff  iron  att  one  of  them  for  a  whipping 
post." 

The  necessity  of  a  regular  ferry  to  Philadel- 
phia being  very  soon  felt  by  the  new  settlers, 
they  applied  to  their  new  Court,  at  Gloucester, 
to  license  one,  which  on  the  first  day  of  First 
month,  (March)  1687,  it  did,  as  appears  by 
this  minute:  "It  is  proposed  to  ye  Bench  y-t 
a  fferry  is  very  needfull  and  much  wanted  from 
Jersey  to  Philadelphia,  and  y-t  William  Roy- 
den's  house  is  look-t  upon  as  a  place  con- 
venient, and  the  said  William  Royden,  a  per- 
son suitable  for  that  imploy,  and  therefore  an 
order  desired  from  ye  Bench  that  a  fferry  may 
be  there  fixed,  &c.,  to  which  ye  Bench  assents 
and  refer  to  ye  grand  jury  to  methodize  ye 
same  and  fix  ye  rates  thereof."  This  they  pro- 
ceeded to  do  in  a  very  leisurely  manner,  for  not 
until  one  year  afterwards,  on  the  first  day  of 
the  First  month,  1688,  did  they  issue  their 
license  to  William  Royden  and  his  assigns, 
permitting  and  appointing  "that  a  common 
passage  or  ferry  for  man  and  beast  be  pro- 
vided, fixed  and  settled  in  some  convenient  and 
proper  place  between  ye  mouths  or  entrances  of 
Cooper's  Creek  and  Newton  Creek,"  within 
which  limits  "all  other  persons  are  desired  and 
requested  to  keep  no  other  common  or  public 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  1 5 

passage  or  ferry."  The  license  also  fixed  the 
ferriage  at  not  more  than  6d.  per  head,  for  each 
person,  and  I2d.  for  man  and  horse  or  other 
beast,  except  swine,  calves  and  sheep,  "which 
shall  pay  only  six  pence  per  head  and  no 
more." 

Thus  was  established  the  original  of  our 
present  ample  ferry  facilities.  It  was  located 
near  the  foot  of  Cooper  street,  its  boats  being 
open  flat-boats  propelled  by  oars  or  sails.  A 
few  years  afterwards  it  was  purchased  by 
William  Cooper,  and  for  more  than  one  hun- 
dred years  thereafter  Camden  was  everywhere 
known  as  Cooper's  Ferries.  To-day  our  Roy- 
den  street  perpetuates  the  memory  of  Camden's 
first  ferryman. 

Cooper's  Creek  was  much  too  great  a  river 
to  ford,  so  that  Samuel  Spicer,  who  lived  on 
its  east  side,  near  its  mouth,  established  a  ferry 
across  it,  at  what  is  now  Federal  street,  that 
was  maintained  until  the  year  1747,  when  the 
first  bridge  was  erected.  Thus,  with  ferries 
across  the  western  and  eastern  boundaries  of 
the  island  of  Aquikanasra,  its  inhabitants 
were  in  full  touch  with  their  neighbors.  From 
that  island  to-day,  five  steam  ferries  cross  the 
Delaware  to  Philadelphia  and  four  bridges 
span  Cooper's  Creek.  Who  can  say  that  the 
much-talked-of  tunnel  under  the  Delaware  may 
not  soon  more  closely  unite  the  twin  cities  on 
its  shores? 

The  establishment  of  the  county  only  sup- 
plied a  part  of  the  necessary  political  ma- 
chinery, and  so  on  the  first  day  of  June,  1695, 


l6  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

the  Grand  Jury,  with  the  assent  of  the  Bench, 
and  in  accordance  with  an  act  of  the  then  last 
Assembly,  constituted  the  constablewick  or 
township  of  Newton  to  extend  from  "the 
lowermost  branch  of  Cooper's  Creek  to  ye 
southerly  branch  of  Newton  Creek  bounding 
Gloucester,"  but  fixing  no  bounds  on  the  east. 
With  their  local  government  thus  completed, 
the  people  in  these  parts  remained  content  for 
one  hundred  and  thirty-three  years.  Thus  was 
created  old  Newton  township,  which,  after 
having  its  fairest  portion  cut  off  in  the  creation 
of  Haddon  township,  was  finally,  after  a  life 
of  one  hundred  and  seventy-six  years,  swal- 
lowed up  by  its  own  progeny  and  obliterated 
from  the  map  in  1871,  when  Camden's  revised 
charter  was  obtained. 

Robert  Turner,  an  Irish  Friend,  residing  in 
Philadelphia,  owned  large  estates  in  Pennsyl- 
vania and  in  East  and  West  Jersey,  among 
which  were  some  large  tracts  of  land  within 
the  present  limits  of  Camden.  In  1696  he 
sold  to  John  Kaighin  four  hundred  and  fifty- 
five  acres,  and  the  next  year  five  hundred  and 
ten  acres,  lower  down  the  river,  to  Archibald 
Mickle.  John  Kaighin  came  originally  from 
the  Isle  of  Man  and  Archibald  Mickle  from 
Ireland.  Both  settled  for  a  short  time  in  Phil- 
adelphia, but  each  moved  to  Jersey  on  making 
these  purchases.  John  Kaighin  chose  for  the 
site  of  his  house  the  Point  that  bears  his  name 
to  this  day,  and  shortly  afterwards  built,  with 
bricks  brought  from  England,  a  substantial 
house,  modeled  after  an  English  farm  house 


OE    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  17 

which,  standing  at  the  southeast  corner  of 
Second  and  Sycamore  streets,  but  so  greatly 
enlarged  and  changed  as  to  have  lost  all  its 
original  appearance,  and  now  numbered  1128 
and  1130  South  Second  street,  is  probably  the 
oldest  house  in  Camden.  Its  site  on  the  river 
bank,  its  front  yard  extending  to  the  water's 
edge,  was  a  beautiful  one,  with  its  un- 
obstructed view  at  the  Point  up  and  down  the 
broad  Delaware.  Elizabeth  Haddon,  a  good 
friend  of  John  Kaighin,  about  the  year  1704, 
on  her  return  from  one  of  her  visits  to  her 
old  English  home,  brought  with  her  some  box 
and  yew  trees  and  gave  two  of  each  to  him, 
who  planted  them  in  front  of  his  house,  where 
they  lived  and  grew  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years,  landmarks  of  Kaighn's  Point.  The  last 
of  the  box  trees  was  blown  over  during  a  great 
storm,  on  February  2,  1876.  The  yew  trees 
lived  until  the  winter  of  1898-99  when  they 
died,  but  one  of  them  yet  stands  at  the  corner 
of  the  two  streets.  At  Haddonfield,  in  the 
yard  of  Samuel  Wood,  near  his  dwelling, 
which  stands  on  the  site  of  Elizabeth  Haddon's 
home,  yet  live  yew  and  box  trees  which  she 
brought  to  America  with  those  she  gave  to 
John  Kaighin. 

William  Cooper,  John  Kaighin  and  Archi- 
bald Mickle  soon  became  prominent  men,  and 
their  descendants  gradually  increased  their  pos- 
sessions until  they  owned  all  the  land  within 
the  limits  of  our  city  before  its  absorption  of 
the  town  of  Stockton.  The  Coopers'  land, 
extending  southward  to  Line  street,  so-called 


l8  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

because  it  marked  the  line  between  them 
and  the  Kaighins;  the  Kaighins'  land  extend- 
ing southward  from  Line  street  to  Little  New- 
ton Creek,  popularly  known  as  the  Line  Ditch, 
because  it  was  the  boundary  between  them 
and  the  Mickles;  and  the  Mickles'  land  ex- 
tending southward  from  Line  Ditch  to  Newton 
Creek,  and  every  title  in  Camden  to-day,  be- 
tween Cooper's  Creek  and  the  Delaware,  can 
be  traced  back  to  a  Mickle,  a  Kaighin  or  a 
Cooper. 

At  the  opening  of  the  Eighteenth  century 
the  smoke  curling  from  less  than  a  dozen  clear- 
ings by  the  water's  edge  pointed  out  the  fore- 
runners more  than  two  centuries  ago  of  our 
present  expanding  town.  A  score  of  years  of 
hard  work  had  passed  since  they  landed;  they 
had  gathered  about  them  some  few  of  the  com- 
forts they  had  left  behind  across  the  seas ;  they 
had  "sett  upp"  the  meeting  for  the  free  worship 
of  God  that  caused  them  to  leave  friends  and 
relations  and  "transport  themselves  and  fam- 
ilys  into  this  wilderness  part  of  America"; 
they  had  established  ferry  communication  with 
their  friends  across  Delaware  river  and 
Cooper's  creek;  they  had  settled  their  free 
form  of  local  civil  government,  and,  having 
recognized  the  right  of  the  aborigines  to  the 
soil  and  treated  them  as  its  owners,  they  were 
living  in  most  harmonious  relations  with  them, 
and,  gradually  increasing  their  clearings,  they 
were  quietly  prospering.  Their  growth  was 
only  the  steady  increase  of  an  industrious  pop- 
ulation. For,  after  the  arrival  and  settlement 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  19 

of  the  Irish  Friends  at  Newton,  there  was  no 
great  influx  of  emigrants  to  this  part  of  West 
Jersey,  Philadelphia  attracting  the  greater  part 
of  the  new-comers.  Occasionally  a  family 
would  move  across  the  river,  but  down  to  the 
time  of  the  Revolution  the  population  was 
mainly  the  descendants  of  those  who  were 
swept  over  here  on  that  swell  of  migration 
caused  by  religious  persecution  in  England  in 
the  Seventeenth  century,  so  that  when  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  had  been  made, 
while  Philadelphia  had  become  the  first  town 
in  the  colonies,  our  territory  was  yet  largely 
woodland,  dotted  by  a  few  farm  houses  and 
intersected  by  but  one  or  two  roads. 

However,  in  1773,  Jacob  Cooper,  a  merchant 
living  in  Philadelphia,  and  a  lineal  descendant 
of  the  first  William  Cooper,  foreseeing  the 
future  town,  employed  Thompson,  a  Philadel- 
phia surveyor,  to  lay  out  forty  acres  into  a 
town  plot.  A  Whig,  sympathizing  with  his 
fellow  Whigs  in  their  struggles  to  obtain  from 
their  mother  country  that  representation 
which  they  claimed  should  ever  accompany 
taxation,  and  venerating  those  Englishmen 
who,  believing  in  the  justness  of  this  demand 
of  the  colonies,  had  the  courage  to  openly  avow 
their  belief,  Jacob  Cooper  named  his  new  town 
Camden,  in  honor  of  that  great  English  judge, 
that  wise  English  statesman,  that  powerful 
champion  of  constitutional  liberty  and  firm  ad- 
vocate of  fair  dealing  with  the  colonies,  who 
has  been  called  the  right  arm  of  Lord  Chatham, 
Charles  Pratt,  first  Earl  of  Camden,  who  so 


2O  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

endeared  himself  to  our  countrymen  that  twen- 
ty-one towns  in  the  United  States  to-day  bear 
his  name.  In  the  infant  town  thus  christened 
only  six  streets  ran  north  and  south — King, 
Queen,  Whitehall,  Cherry,  Cedar  and  Pine,  in- 
tersected at  right  angles  at  the  Delaware  side 
by  Cooper  and  Market  streets  only,  but  on  the 
eastern  side  by  Plum  street  also. 

With  that  same  admixture  of  loyalty  and 
defiance  so  marked  in  almost  all  the  earlier 
steps  taken  by  our  Revolutionary  forefathers, 
while  naming  his  town  after  one  of  the  fore- 
most champions  of  the  American  cause  in  Eng- 
land, Jacob  Cooper  honored  his  King  and 
Queen  in  the  naming  of  his  streets,  and 
through  all  the  bitter  feeling  engendered  by 
our  two  struggles  with  the  mother  country 
his  nomenclature  remained  unchanged.  It  was 
not  until  May  24th,  1832,  that  adopting  a  new 
system,  by  ordinance  of  Council,  King,  Queen, 
Whitehall,  Cherry,  Cedar  and  Pine  became 
Front,  Second,  Third,  Fourth,  Fifth  and  Sixth 
streets.  But  it  was  left  until  the  days  of  pre- 
tentious change  that,  in  the  very  mockery  of 
old  associations,  on  Camden's  one  hundredth 
anniversary,  time-honored  Plum  was  dropped 
for  meaningless  Arch. 

Almost  immediately  after  Camden  was 
planned  the  Revolution  broke  out  and  the 
struggle  for  independence  and  existence  as  a 
free  people  absorbing  all  other  energies,  scarce- 
ly a  thing  was  done  to  promote  the  growth  of 
the  little  town  whose  birth  was  so  unheralded. 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  21 

During  the  whole  of  the  occupation  of  Phila- 
delphia by  the  British,  Cooper's  Point  was  held 
by  them  as  an  outpost,  General  Abercrombie 
having  his  headquarters  in  the  old  gambrel- 
roofed  farm  house,  still  standing  at  the  head 
of  Point  street,  with  the  stone  in  which  is  cut 
the  date  of  its  erection,  1734,  still  in  place  in 
its  gable  end,  while  an  English  and  several 
Scotch  and  Hessian  regiments  were  quartered 
at  the  old  ferry  house,  at  the  foot  of  Cooper 
street,  torn  down  in  1882.  The  British  lines 
extended  along  the  river  front  from  Cooper's 
Point  down  nearly  to  Market  street ;  thence  up 
to  Sixth  street ;  thence  diagonally  about  north- 
east to  Cooper's  creek,  portions  of  their  re- 
doubts remaining  for  many  years  afterwards. 

The  Hessians,  under  Count  Donop,  two 
thousand  five  hundred  strong,  crossed  at 
Cooper's  Point  late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  2ist 
of  October,  1777,  on  their  way  to  the  battle 
of  Red  Bank,  and  the  straggling  survivors, 
after  their  defeat,  returned  to  Philadelphia  the 
same  way.  Marching  to  the  battle  by  way  of 
Haddonfield  and  Clement's  bridge,  in  order  to 
cross  the  creeks,  the  Americans  having  de- 
stroyed the  bridges  lower  down  the  stream  to 
obstruct  such  an  attack,  the  Hessians,  thirsty, 
stopped  to  get  drink  at  the  brick  farm  house 
of  Joseph  Mickle,  that  stood,  until  torn  down 
in  April,  1908,  on  Mickle  hill,  east  of  Mount 
Ephraim  avenue,  between  Everett  and  Thur- 
man  streets,  near  the  stand-pipe.  Unable  to 
pump  water  they  vented  their  displeasure  in 
unintelligible  Dutch,  until  Joseph  Mickle's  wife 
came  to  the  pump  and  by  the  simple,  familiar 


22  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

device  of  pouring  water  down  it  caused  its 
buckets  to  draw  water.  Their  thirst  quenched, 
the  Hessians,  without  damage  to  Joseph 
Mickle's  premises,  marched  on  to  their  crush- 
ing defeat. 

Lying  directly  opposite  Philadelphia,  Cam- 
den's  territory  was  constantly  overrun,  and  its 
farming  population  harassed  and  alarmed  by 
detached  parties  of  British  soldiery  skirmishing 
and  foraging,  taking  what  they  wished.  When 
the  British  fleet  arrived  at  Philadelphia,  their 
men-of-war  anchored  on  the  Pennsylvania  side, 
while  their  convoys  and  tenders,  numbering 
about  one  hundred,  filled  the  Jersey  channel, 
and  cannon  balls  from  their  guns  are  preserved 
to-day,  as  valued  relics,  by  the  descendants 
of  those  along  our  shores,  whom  the  wanton 
firing  greatly  alarmed  if  it  did  not  much  dam- 
age. 

Although  Camden  is  not  distinguished  as 
one  of  the  battlefields  of  the  Revolution,  yet 
the  ground  on  which  the  non-resisting  follow- 
ers of  Fox  have  placed  their  humble  meeting- 
house was  twice  the  scene  of  warlike  manoeu- 
vers.  In  the  early  part  of  1778,  Gen.  Anthony 
Wayne,  being  sent  with  a  body  of  soldiers 
into  the  lower  counties  of  our  State  to  collect 
horses  and  cattle  for  the  American  army,  with 
his  usual  fierce  and  bold  aggressiveness  soon 
made  the  enemy  everywhere  dread  his  on- 
slaught; and  Colonel  Stirling,  with  a  regiment 
of  the  Queen's  Rangers,  one  of  the  best  in  the 
service,  was  sent  to  Haddonfield  to  watch  him. 
Hearing  that  he  had  left  Mount  Holly  to  at- 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  23 

tack  them,  the  British,  fully  believing  discre- 
tion to  be  the  better  part  of  valor  when  "Mad 
Anthony"  was  about,  hastily  retreated,  never 
stopping  until  they  reached,  late  at  night,  the 
shelter  of  their  earthworks  at  Cooper's  Point, 
although  "the  night  was  uncommonly  severe 
and  a  cold  sleet  fell  the  whole  way  from  Had-* 
donfield  to  the  ferry."  Wayne  pursued  them 
with  his  usual  impetuosity.  The  next  morn- 
ing, March  ist,  1778,  the  enemy  sent  out  fifty 
picked  men  for  some  remaining  forage  three 
or  four  miles  up  the  Haddonfield  road,  who 
were  met  by  Wayne's  advancing  cavalry  and 
forced  to  retreat.  The  Americans  dashed  on 
to  the  very  lines  of  the  British,  drawn  up  be- 
tween Sixth  and  Market  streets  and  Cooper's 
Creek  bridge.  A  sharp  and  spirited  skir- 
mish ensued,  heavy  firing  being  kept  up  by  the 
British,  from  about  where  the  Friends'  meet- 
ing-house now  stands,  on  the  main  body  of 
the  Americans,  stationed  in  the  woods  along 
the  Haddonfield  road,  which  then  intersected 
Market  street  at  Broadway,  where  the  Catholic 
church  now  is.  The  British,  outnumbering 
the  Americans  ten  to  one,  compelled  them  to 
retire  to  the  woods,  but  without  the  loss  of  a 
man,  although  the  British  had  several  wounded 
and  one  sergeant  of  grenadiers  killed.  As  the 
patriots  retired,  an  officer  reined  up  his  steed 
and,  "facing  the  Rangers  as  they  dashed  on, 
slowly  waved  his  sword  for  his  attendants  to 
retreat.  The  English  Light  Infantry  came 
within  fifty  yards  of  him,  when  one  of  them 
called  out,  'You  are  a  brave  fellow,  but  you 


24  HISTORICAL,   SKETCH 

must  go  away.'  The  undaunted  officer,  paying 
no  attention  to  the  warning,  one  McGill,  after- 
wards a  quartermaster,  was  ordered  to  fire  at 
him.  He  did  so,  and  wounded  the  horse,  but 
the  rider  was  unscathed,  and  soon  joined  his 
comrades  in  the  woods  a  little  way  off."1  This 
daring  officer  was  the  Count  Pulaski. 

Soon  afterwards,  in  the  same  month,  Pu- 
laski, whilst  reconnoitering  with  a  body  of 
horsemen,  almost  under  the  fortifications  of 
the  British,  was  only  saved  from  an  ambush, 
arranged  by  Colonel  Shaw  on  both  sides  of 
old  Cooper  street,  near  the  Friends'  meeting- 
house, by  William  West,  a  patriot,  apprised 
of  the  danger,  who,  seeing  him  riding  down 
the  road  some  distance  ahead  of  his  men,  lead- 
ing them  into  the  trap,  waved  to  him  to  re- 
treat. Taking  the  hint,  Pulaski  at  once  wheel- 
ed his  men  and  the  ambuscade  failed.  Not  so 
fortunate,  however,  was  a  party  of  militia  that 
the  British  surprised  about  this  time,  at  Coop- 
er's Creek  bridge,  many,  after  a  sharp  fight,  be- 
ing killed  and  the  rest  taken  prisoners.  Soon 
afterwards  the  enemy  evacuated  Philadelphia, 
the  scene  of  hostilities  shifted,  and  our  imme- 
diate neighborhood  had  little  further  annoy- 
ance from  the  Red-coats. 

In  June,  1777,  the  Trustees  of  Princeton 
College  met  at  Cooper's  Ferry,  where  they 
formally  admitted  the  graduating  class  of  1776 
to  their  Bachellor's  degree,  as  of  the  Com- 
mencement in  September  of  that  year,  a 
quorum  of  the  Board  not  having  been  then 

i  Mickle,  p.  51. 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  25 

present.  The  announcement  of  their  meeting 
in  Camden,  said  to  have  been  the  only  one  held 
outside  of  Princeton  under  the  stress  of  war, 
was  made  by  President  Witherspoon  in  the 
New  Jersey  Gazette  of  September  i6th,  1778. 
Nassau  Hall  was  occupied  by  the  British  as  a 
barrack  prior  to  January  3d,  1777,  when 
Washington  won  the  battle  of  Princeton,  and 
afterwards  was  used  as  a  hospital  and  a  bar- 
rack by  the  Americans,  which  may  account 
for  the  meeting  of  the  College  Trustees  at 
Cooper's  ferry.1 

Long  before  the  Revolution,  Franklin  spent 
a  night  within  our  present  Camden,  of  which 
he  tells  in  his  famous  autobiography.  In  Oc- 
tober, 1723,  being  a  boy  of  but  seventeen,  and 
on  his  way  to  Philadelphia  to  seek  employment 
as  a  printer,  he  came  across  a  boat  at  Burling- 
ton in  the  evening  going  to  Philadelphia  and 
went  aboard  of  it.  There  being  no  wind,  all, 
Franklin  included,  were  forced  to  row  the 
whole  way.  About  midnight,  fearing  that  they 
had  passed  the  unlighted  town,  they  put  ashore, 
and,  building  a  fire  of  fence  rails,  staid  until 
morning,  when  they  found  they  were  in  the 
mouth  of  Cooper's  Creek,  "a  little  above  Phila- 
phia,"  where  they  arrived  "about  eight  or  nine 
o'clock  on  the  Sunday  morning  and  landed  at 
the  Market  street  wharf."  Up  which  street, 
having  bought  "three  great  puffy  rolls,"  he 
walked  in  his  working  clothes,  "with  a  roll  un- 
der each  arm  and  eating  the  other,"  passing 
his  future  wife  standing  in  the  doorway  of  her 

i  N.  J.  Archives,  2d  Series,  Vol.  2,  p.  436. 


26  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

father's  house,  who  thought  that  he  made  "a 
most  awkward,  ridiculous  appearance,"  which, 
he  says,  "I  certainly  did." 

Washington,  while  President,  at  times  cross- 
ed the  Delaware  to  ride  out  the  road  from 
Cooper's  Ferry.  He  last  did  so  early  in  1797, 
when  he  nearly  frightened  out  of  his  wits  a 
Dutchman,  a  Hessian  deserter  at  the  battle  of 
Trenton,  who  said  to  him,  "I  tink  I  has  seen 
your  face  before;  vat  ish  your  name?"  The 
President,  reining  in  his  horse  and  bowing, 
said,  "My  name  is  George  Washington."  The 
Dutchman,  thunderstruck,  cried  out,  "Oh, 
mine  Gott,  I  vish  I  vos  unter  te  ice.  I  vish  I 
was  unter  te  ice.  Oh,  mine  Gott."  Washing- 
ton reassured  him  and  smilingly  rode  on. 

Had  Camden  the  choice  of  four  great  Revo- 
lutionary names  to  be  associated  with  her  his- 
tory she  could  hardly  have  done  better  than 
Washington,  Franklin,  Wayne  and  Pulaski. 

During  the  British  occupancy  of  Philadel- 
phia one  of  their  cannon  balls  pierced  the  brick 
wall  of  the  chimney  of  Joseph  Kaighin's  farm 
house,  which  stood  at  the  southeast  corner  of 
Front  street  and  Kaighn  avenue,  and  rolled 
out  on  the  hearth  of  the  open  fireplace.  As 
a  relic  connecting  Camden's  history  with  the 
sterling  men  and  stirring  events  of  the  Revo- 
lution it  was  exhibited  at  the  great  Sanitary 
Fair,  held  in  Logan  Square  in  Philadelphia,  in 
1864,  which  realized  over  $1,000,000,  in  aid 
of  the  sick  and  wounded  United  States  soldiers 
of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion. 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  27 

Paul  Jones'  famous  warship,  Alliance, 
launched  just  before  the  making  of  the  treaty 
by  which  France  became  our  ally  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary War  and  named  in  honor  of  that 
event,  was  laid  up  shortly  after  the  close  of 
that  war,  on  the  east  side  of  Petty's  Island, 
near  its  southern  end,  where  her  remains  yet 
were  when  Isaac  Mickle  published,  in  1845, 
his  valuable  "Reminiscences  of  Old  Glouces- 
ter." Barber  and  Howe,  in  their  New  Jersey 
Historical  Collections,  tell  the  following  anec- 
dote in  the  career  of  the  Alliance:  "In  an  en- 
counter with  a  British  vessel,  a  shot  entered 
the  corner  of  the  Alliance's  counter,  and  made 
its  way  into  a  locker,  where  all  the  china  be- 
longing to  the  captain  was  kept.  An  African 
servant  of  Commodore  Barry,  a  great  favorite, 
ran  up  to  the  quarter  deck,  and  called  out, 
'Massa  dat — Ingresse  man  broke  all  de  chana !' 
'You  rascal,'  said  the  Commodore,  'why  did 
you  not  stop  the  ball?'  'Sha,  massa,  cannon- 
ball  must  hab  a  room.' ' 

"How  they  brought  the  good  news  from 
Ghent  to  Aix,"  the  lovers  of  Robert  Brown- 
ing know.  How  they  brought  the  good  news 
from  Ghent  to  America,  of  the  signing  at  that 
town,  on  December  24th,  1814,  of  the  treaty 
of  peace,  ending  the  war  of  1812',  the  Ameri- 
cans first  knew  when  the  British  sloop-of-war, 
Favorite,  on  February  nth,  1815,  cast  an- 
chor in  New  York  harbor,  the  glad  tidings 
being  confirmed  two  weeks  later,  when  the 
schooner  Transit  brought  the  copy  of  the 
treaty.  Afterwards  the  Transit,  her  sea-going 


28  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

days  over,  was  laid  up  on  the  northern  end 
of  the  now  removed  Windmill  Island,  opposite 
Chestnut  street,  Philadelphia,  with  her  stern 
toward  the  river,  and  on  it  painted  the  name 
"Messenger  of  Peace,"  remaining  there  as  a 
pleasure  house,  Mickle  says,  until  within  a  few 
years  of  his  publication  of  his  "Reminiscences 
of  Old  Gloucester." 

Evidence  of  the  growth  of  a  pine  forest 
over  much  of  Camden's  territory,  later,  by 
over  a  century,  than  the  name  Pyne  Poynte, 
is  furnished  by  Hill's  "Map  of  Ten  Miles 
Around  Philadelphia,"  published  in  1809, 
whereon  all  the  territory  between  Broadway 
and  Cooper's  Creek  and  Federal  and  Line 
streets  is  marked  "R.  M.  Cooper's  Pine  Field, 
300  acres."  Near  the  centre  of  that  field  in 
early  days  was  a  lake  much  frequented  by 
wild  geese  and  ducks,  which,  surrounded  by 
the  pine  forest,  is  shown  in  an  oil  painting  of 
it  by  a  Philadelphia  artist,  as  a  picturesque 
body  of  water.  So  late  as  1845,  there  were, 
according  to  Mickle,  those  who  remembered 
when  it  contained  several  feet  of  water 
throughout  the  year.  The  cutting  down  of  the 
trees  surrounding  the  lake  and  the  general 
clearing  of  the  land  along  Cooper's  Creek  and 
Delaware  River  lowered  their  waters,  causing 
that  in  the  lake  to  be  drained. 

Of  the  oak  forest  that  thickly  covered  the 
ground  between  Market  and  Main  and  Sixth 
and  Eighth  streets,  quite  a  number  of  trees  yet 
remain.  They  owe  their  preservation  largely 
to  the  fact  that  in  them  was  established  and 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  2Q 

kept  for  many  years  Diamond  Cottage  Garden, 
the  last  of  the  numerous  public  pleasure  gar- 
dens that  formerly  were  scattered  over  Cam- 
den.  The  Cottage,  with  its  diamond-paned 
windows,  stood  partly  across  the  south  side- 
walk of  Penn  street  below  Seventh  street  and 
was  torn  down  in  1891.  Several  years  before 
that  the  grounds  had  been  abandoned  as  a 
public  garden,  but  the  trees  were  allowed  to 
stand  and  their  cool  shade  was  freely  enjoyed 
by  the  public  and  the  place  was  popularly 
known  as  Diamond  Cottage  Park.  The  New 
Jersey  State  Agricultural  Society  held  its  fair 
in  that  woods  in  1855,  the  only  year  its  fair 
has  been  held  in  Camden. 

The  large  elm  tree  standing  in  Cooper 
Park,  just  north  of  the  Public  Library,  has  a 
history.  Richard  M.  Cooper,  who  lived  in 
that  house,  had  in  his  household  a  child's  nurse 
whose  family  lived  in  Kensington,  Philadel- 
phia, near  the  Treaty  Elm.  Once  on  her  re- 
turn from  a  visit  to  them  she  brought  with  her 
a  young  sucker  from  that  tree  and  planted  it 
in  his  yard.  It  grew  and  flourished,  and  is  the 
fine  specimen  adorning  the  Park  to-day.  A 
sucker  from  it  is  growing  on  the  sidewalk  on 
the  north  side  of  Penn  street,  just  below 
Seventh  street.  So,  Camden  has  living  to-day 
both  a  child  and  a  grandchild  of  the  Penn 
Treaty  elm. 

For  many  years  after  the  Revolution,  Cam- 
den was  a  town  only  in  name,  and  that  only 
on  paper,  being  called  Cooper's  Ferries,  or 
simply  The  Ferries,  until  after  the  beginning 


3O  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

of  this  century.  A  few  sales  of  lots  had  been 
made  and  a  few  houses  began  to  cluster  about 
the  ferries,  and  a  road  or  two  more  had  been 
opened,  but  all  else  was  farm  or  woodland. 

When  the  Nineteenth  century  opened  not  a 
house  of  worship  stood  within  the  present 
limits  of  Camden.  In  1801,  however,  the 
Friends,  having  decided  to  move  their  place 
of  meeting  from  their  old  house  on  Newton 
Creek  to  a  more  central  locality,  built  the  brick 
meeting-house  that  stands  at  the  corner  of 
Mount  Ephraim  avenue  and  Mount  Vernon 
street,  the  forerunner  of  Camden's  present 
ninety  churches;  and  next,  in  1810,  the  Metho- 
dists dedicated  their  first  church  at  the  north- 
west corner  of  Fourth  and  Federal  streets, 
long  since  converted  into  stores,  followed,  in 
1818,  by  the  First  Baptist  Church,  on  Fourth 
street,  and  thereafter  the  churches  kept  pace 
with  Camden's  growth. 

The  mode  of  ferriage  across  the  Delaware 
in  open  boats,  established  as  we  have  seen  so 
early  in  our  history,  remained  without  change 
or  improvement  until  1809  or  1810,  when  a 
small  steamboat,  carrying  passengers  only, 
was  placed  on  the  river.  She  was  named 
Camden  and  ran  from  the  foot  of  Cooper  street 
to  the  lower  side  of  Market  street,  Philadel- 
phia. In  1809  the  ferry  at  Kaighn's  Point 
was  established  by  Joseph  Kaighn  (who  drop- 
ped the  last  i  in  the  name  Kaighin  because  it 
had  ceased  to  be  pronounced)  and  soon  a 
small  steamboat,  also  carrying  passengers  only, 
and  also,  it  is  believed,  called  Camden,  was 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  31 

placed  on  the  line.  Which  of  the  two  was  the 
first  steamboat  is  doubtful.  After  them  came 
one  called  "The  Twins,"  because  she  had  two 
hulls  clamped  together  with  the  wheel  pro- 
pelling her  in  the  centre  between  them,  a  type 
used  many  years  afterwards  in  the  small 
steamboat,  John  Smith,  which  plied  for  a  time 
between  Arch  street,  Philadelphia,  and  the 
northern  end  of  Windmill  Island.  After  The 
Twins  came  the  steamboat  Rebecca,  built  in 
1813,  popularly  known  as  "Aunt  Becky," 
which  ran  from  Cooper's  Point  to  Arch  street, 
and  whose  peculiarities  were  that  she  had  a 
single  propelling  wheel  astern,  causing  her  to 
be  further  nicknamed  "The  Wheelbarrow," 
and  had  a  wooden  boiler,  hooped  like  a  cask, 
but,  nevertheless,  an  effective  one,  since  she 
frequently  made  her  run  in  five  minutes. 
Crude  as  were  those  early  steamboats  they 
were  marvelous  advances  over  the  primitive 
wherries,  open  row  boats  built  with  double 
keels  to  enable  them,  when  the  river  was  part- 
ly frozen,  to  be  drawn  from  the  water  and 
upon  and  along  the  ice  until  open  water  was 
again  reached.  But  the  passenger  traffic 
across  the  river  was  too  inconsiderable  to  keep 
up  such  a  stride,  and,  after  a  few  years,  the 
ferrymen,  taking  in  sail,  adopted  in  summer 
the  team  boats,  propelled  by  horses  walking 
round  a  circle  on  a  tread  wheel,  and  stopping 
entirely  for  an  hour  at  noon-time  to  feed  the 
horses;  and  in  the  winter,  when  the  ice  in  the 
river  was  not  frozen  solid,  they  fell  back  upon 
the  old  wherries.  It  was  not  until  1835  that 


32  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

the  steam  ferryboat,  regularly  making  its  trips 
winter  and  summer  alike,  became  firmly  estab- 
lished as  a  fixture  on  the  Delaware  highway. 
\Vhen  it  was  proposed  to  build  a  steamboat 
powerful  enough  to  break  through  ice,  "many 
declared  it  as  impossible  as  it  would  be  to 
propel  a  boat  up  Market  street  hill."  But  the 
old  State  Rights,  with  her  eighty  horse-power, 
and  the  ever  larger,  more  powerful  boats  fol- 
lowing her,  culminating  in  those  of  to-day, 
carrying  yearly  some  twelve  millions  of  passen- 
gers to  and  fro  across  the  Delaware  without 
stoppage  by  the  ice,  prove  the  force  of  Kos- 
suth's  motto,  "Nothing  is  impossible  to  him 
that  wills." 

In  1812  the  village  of  Camden  had  become 
sufficiently  important  and  known  throughout 
the  State  to  be  named  by  the  Legislature,  in  the 
act  of  January  I2th  of  that  year,  establishing 
State  banks,  as  one  of  the  six  towns  authorized 
to  do  so.  Under  that  act  Camden's  first  bank 
was  incorporated  on  June  i6th,  1812,  as  "The 
President,  Directors  and  Company  of  the  State 
Bank  at  Camden."  An  unwieldy  name  which 
was  quickly  shortened  in  common  parlance  to 
The  State  Bank  at  Camden,  and  so  retained 
until  its  conversion  to  a  National  bank  on 
June  2d,  1865.  After  which  its  present  name, 
The  National  State  Bank  of  Camden,  gradually 
attached  itself.  Not  until  sixty-one  years  after 
its  start  had  Camden  a  trust  company.  The 
Camden  Safe  Deposit  and  Trust  Company  was 
incorporated  on  April  4th,  1873,  and  began 
business  in  July  following.  Camden's  size. 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  33 

and  its  importance  as  the  financial  centre  of 
South  Jersey  has  grown  until  now,  1909,  three 
National  banks  and  five  trust  companies  find 
in  it  a  good  field  for  wise  financial  manage- 
ment, profitable  to  them  and  beneficial  to  its 
citizens,  and  to  those  of  a  widely  surrounding 
circle. 


34  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

Chapter  2 

Though  Camden's  early  growth  was  very 
slow,  and  half  a  century  after  its  birth  it  was 
but  a  small  town,  yet  it  had  a  vigor  of  self- 
assertion  that  compelled  its  recognition  by  the 
people  of  the  county.  The  annual  town  meet- 
ings of  Newton  township  had  been  held  alter- 
nately here  and  at  Haddonfield  until  1827, 
when  the  Haddonfield  people,  conscious  of 
their  greater  voting  strength,  at  the  town  meet- 
ing, held  regularly  in  turn  at  their  place,  re- 
solved to  shove  Camden  to  the  wall  and  there- 
after to  meet  only  at  Haddonfield.  Their 
superior  number  carried  the  question.  But  he 
laughs  best  who  laughs  last,  and  they  uncon- 
sciously aroused  the  young  giant  that  ever 
afterward  whipped  them  in  many  a  hard 
fought  battle.  The  Camdenians  left  the  town 
meeting  very  indignant,  and  Jeremiah  Sloan, 
then  a  talented  young  lawyer  of  great  promise, 
said  to  the  Haddonfielders,  "I'll  fix  you;  I  will 
have  Camden  incorporated  next  winter."  He 
executed  his  threat,  and  at  the  next  session  of 
the  Legislature  the  act  was  passed  incorporat- 
ing the  city  of  Camden. 

Thus  it  was  that  Camden,  with  a  population 
of  but  1,143,  attained  her  legal  majority  with 
the  right  to  manage  her  own  affairs  as  she 
saw  fit,  free  from  the  tutelage  of  country  town 
meetings. 

This  first  charter  was  passed  February  I3th, 
1828,  and  is  entitled  "An  act  to  incorporate  a 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  35 

part  of  the  township  of  Newtoa,  in  the  county 
of  Gloucester."  It  has  only  eighteen  sections, 
and,  though  but  eighty-one  years  have  passed, 
many  of  its  provisions  already  sound  quaint. 
It  calls  Broadway  "the  public  road  leading  to 
Woodbury  from  the  Camden  Academy,"  and 
Newton  avenue  "the  road  leading  from 
Kaighinton  to  Cooper's  Creek  bridge,"  and 
Petty's  Island  "Pethey's  Island."  It  provides, 
in  section  i,  that  the  new  city  shall  be  called 
"The  City  of  Camden,"  and  then,  in  section  2, 
that  the  corporate  name  of  the  city  shall  be 
"The  Mayor,  Aldermen  and  Common  Council 
of  the  City  of  Camden."  The  city  officials  were 
a  Mayor,  a  Recorder,  four  Aldermen ,  five 
Common  Councilmen  and  a  Town  Clerk.  The 
Mayor,  Recorder,  Aldermen  and  Common 
Council,  or  a  majority  of  them,  of  whom  the 
Mayor  or  Recorder  must  be  one,  were  author- 
ized to  hold  a  Common  Council  and  to  make 
ordinances  and  regulations  for  the  well  order- 
ing and  governing  of  the  city.  The  Common 
Council  were  to  be  chosen  at  the  annual  town 
meetings  on  the  second  Monday  in  March  and 
within  six  days  thereafter  they  were  to  elect 
the  Mayor. 

The  Recorder  and  Aldermen,  as  semi-judi- 
cial officers,  were  to  be  appointed  by  the  Legis- 
lature "in  joint  meeting"  in  the  same  manner 
as  justices  of  the  peace  were  appointed  and  to 
continue  in  office  for  the  same  time  (i.  e.  five 
years).  The  charter  further  provided  that 
"one  of  the  Aldermen  and  one  of  the  Com- 
mon Council  shall  always  be  a  resident  of 


36  HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

Kaighinton,  and  one  of  each  of  said  officers 
shall  always  be  a  resident  of  the  village  com- 
monly called  'William  Cooper's  Ferry.' '  And 
that  the  Mayor,  Recorder  and  Aldermen  shall 
constitute  a  court  to  be  styled  "the  Court  of 
General  Quarter  Sessions  of  the  Peace  of  the 
City  of  Camden,"  having  within  the  city  all 
the  powers  that  the  county  courts  of  Quarter 
Sessions  had  or  might  have,  excepting  the 
granting  of  tavern  licenses,  and  hearing  ap- 
peals in  pauper  cases — a  court  abolished  by  the 
act  of  February  29th,  1856. 

The  new  city  was  bounded  by  the  Delaware 
River  from  the  mouth  of  Cooper's  Creek  to 
the  mouth  of  Little  Newton  Creek  (by  every 
one  called  Line  Ditch),  by  it  to  the  east  side 
of  Broadway,  by  it  to  the  east  side  of  New- 
ton avenue,  by  it  to  the  south  side  of  Federal 
street,  by  it  to  the  middle  of  Cooper's  Creek 
and  by  it  to  the  Delaware  River. 

At  the  first  election  for  city  officers,  held 
March  zoth,  1828,  in  town  meeting  at  the 
Academy,  which  stood  at  Sixth  and  Market 
streets,  where  the  George  Genge  public  school 
now  is,  the  following  Common  Councilmen 
were  chosen:  James  Duer,  from  Cooper's 
Ferry;  John  Lawrence,  Ebenezer  Toole  and 
Richard  Fetters,  from  Camden,  and  Joseph 
Kaighn,  from  Kaighnton.  James  Duer  and 
Joseph  Kaighn  declining  to  serve,  at  a  special 
election  held  on  the  fifth  of  the  following  April, 
Edward  Dougherty  and  Richard  B.  Champion 
were  chosen  in  their  place.  The  new  Council 
held  its  first  meeting  on  March  I3th,  1828,  and 


FIRST  COURT  HOUSE  AND  CITY  HALL 


Otf   CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  37 

elected  Samuel  Lanning  first  Mayor  of  Cam- 
den. 

The  new  municipality,  however,  had  but  lit- 
tle of  the  appearance  of  a  city.  The  three  vil- 
lages of  which  it  was  composed — Camden 
proper,  Cooper's  Point  and  Kaighn's  Point — 
remained  separated  by  cultivated  farms  and  by 
woods  and  retained  their  peculiar  characteris- 
tics for  many  years.  Extending  but  a  short 
distance  from  the  river,  all  the  territory  east 
of  them  to  Cooper's  Creek  was  as  much  coun- 
try as  any  other  part  of  the  county,  and  where 
used  for  purposes  of  husbandry  only,  was,  by 
the  charter,  exempted  from  taxation  for  the 
support  of  the  city. 

I  cannot  better  contrast  then  and  now  than 
by  bringing  to  light  from  the  musty  first  min- 
utes of  Council  two  transactions.  On  April 
23d,  1828,  "The  Council  rented  of  Richard 
Fetters  for  one  year  the  room  over  his  store 
for  the  purpose  of  a  temporary  Council  and 
Court  hall,  for  the  sum  of  twenty-five  dollars 
per  annum  or  six  dollars  per  quarter."  And 
on  June  5th,  1829,  the  committee  appointed  to 
make  "a  fair  expose  of  the  receipts  and  ex- 
penditures of  the  corporation  up  to  this  date," 
reported  to  Council  that  there  had  come  into 
Samuel  Lanning's  hands  $3,456.23,  and  paid 
out  by  him  $3,512.49,  leaving  a  balance  due 
him  of  $56.26. 

The  Common  Council  quickly  acted  to  pro- 
vide a  permanent  town  hall  by  passing,  on 
June  1 2th,  1828,  an  ordinance  appointing  Sam- 
uel Lanning,  John  K.  Cowperthwaite  and  Rich- 


38  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

ard  Fetters  commissioners  to  buy  a  lot  and 
build  a  jail  and  court  house  "in  the  said  city, 
agreeably  to  their  best  skill  and  understanding, 
and  which  may  be  the  most  judicious  plan 
for  our  city,"  and  authorizing  them  "to  borrow 
from  Jacob  Evaul"  (a  farmer  living  a  short 
distance  outside  of  Camden)  "$2,500  at  six 
per  cent,  interest"  for  that  purpose.  They  pur- 
chased a  lot  on  the  south  side  of  Federal  street, 
below  Fifth  street,  and  built  thereon  a  small, 
baldly  plain,  unpretentious  stone  and  brick 
building,  having  on  the  ground  floor  "a  jail 
or  lock  up"  and  on  the  second  floor  a  court 
room,  used  also  as  a  council  chamber,  reached 
by  a  wooden  stairway  on  the  outside  of  its 
Federal  street  front.  As  the  only  public  hall 
in  the  city  for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
its  court  room  was  used  for  nearly  every  meet- 
ing of  a  public  nature  then  held  in  Camden. 
On  the  building  of  our  present  City  Hall,  on 
Haddon  avenue,  the  old  hall  was  torn  down  in 
1878,  and  in  its  place  was  built  a  large  brick 
market  house,  which,  in  turn,  was  torn  down 
in  1900  that  the  present  fine  office  building  of 
the  Public  Service  Corporation  might  be  built 
on  its  site. 

The  town  having  reached  the  dignity  of  a 
municipality,  the  name  of  its  post-office,  which 
from  1803  had  been  Cooper's  Ferry,  was 
changed  on  June  22d,  1829,  to  Camden. 

About  this  time  the  desire  for  a  more  speedy 
conveyance  than  the  old  stage  coach  was  crop- 
ping out  in  many  places  throughout  the  coun- 
try, and  very  general  inquiry  was  being  made 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  39 

into  the  feasibility  of  railroads  to  meet  the 
want.  During  1827  the  project  of  a  railway 
to  connect  Philadelphia  and  New  York  began 
to  be  talked  of  in  earnest.  Meetings  were 
held  in  the  Camden  Academy  of  those  favor- 
ing the  enterprise,  preliminary  surveys  made, 
and  such  general  interest  excited  as  finally  re- 
sulted in  the  Legislature  granting,  on  Febru- 
ary 4th,  1830,  the  charter  for  "The  Camden 
and  Amboy  Railroad  and  Transportation  Com- 
pany." The  company  was  soon  organized  and 
the  road  begun,  and  in  January,  1834,  the  first 
train  ran  into  Camden.  This  was  a  very 
marked  event  for  the  young  city.  The  railroad 
was  the  longest  then  built  in  this  country  and 
its  completion  a  matter  of  great  rejoicing. 
People  kept  watch  to  see  the  trains  arrive,  even 
those  as  far  off  as  Kaighn's  Point,  no  houses 
then  intervening,  going  to  the  tops  of  their 
houses  to  view  the  novel  sight. 

Hardly  four  years  had  passed  after  the  in- 
corporation of  Camden,  when  some  of  her 
prominent  citizens,  on  March  16,  1832,  pro- 
cured a  charter  for  the  incorporation  of  "The 
Camden  Fire  Insurance  Company,"  a  stock 
company,  the  preamble  of  which  stated  that 
sundry  inhabitants  of  Camden  City  and  its 
vicinity  had  represented  to  the  Legislature  that 
insurance  on  property  in  this  State  is  frequent- 
ly and  to  a  large  amount  made  in  Philadelphia, 
and  that  an  insurance  company  in  Camden 
"would  tend  to  the  great  convenience  of  the  in- 
habitants and  would  confine  at  home  a  source 
of  wealth  which  is  yearly  carried  into  another 


4O  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

State."  The  company  continued  in  business 
for  some  years,  but  not  proving  so  successful 
in  confining  at  home  the  wealth  its  promoters 
hoped,  an  act  of  the  Legislature  was  pass- 
ed in  1849  creating  Abraham  Browning, 
Thomas  H.  Dudley  and  Isaiah  Toy  trustees  to 
wind  up  its  affairs.  In  1841,  The  Camden 
Mutual  Insurance  Association  was  incorpo- 
rated, and  as  the  stock  company  into  which  it 
was  converted  in  1870  under  an  act  of  the 
Legislature,  and  under  the  name  of  The  Cam- 
den  Fire  Insurance  Association,  which  it  adopt- 
ed by  certificate  filed  on  February  3d,  1881, 
continues  to-day,  after  The  National  State 
Bank,  the  oldest  business  corporation  existent 
in  Camden. 

Jacob  Cooper,  in  laying  out  Camden,  planned 
the  open  square  at  the  intersection  of  Third  and 
Market  streets  for  a  market  place  similar  to 
those  in  many  towns  in  England.  It  was 
never  so  used  and  Camden  never  so  fully 
adopted  the  system  of  open  market  sheds  in 
the  streets  as  did  Philadelphia.  In  1837  City 
Council  caused  a  small  one  to  be  built  on  Third 
street  immediately  south  of  Market  street,  and 
in  1856  a  second  one  to  be  erected  in  the  center 
of  Third  street  from  Arch  to  Federal  street. 
The  last  was  removed  in  1876  and  the  first 
shortly  before  it,  to  the  great  improvement  of 
the  street. 

Not  satisfied  with  being  a  city,  Camden  ere 
long  began  to  think  that  there  should  be  a  new 
county  created,  with  it  as  the  shire-town,  and 
actively  pushed  the  project.  This  excited 


OP   CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  4! 

great  opposition  throughout  the  county.  In- 
dignation meetings  were  held  at  Woodbury 
and  other  places.  The  Camden  people  had  to 
fight  almost  unaided  their  uphill  battle.  They 
claimed  it  as  a  necessary  measure  "to  accom- 
modate the  fast  swelling  population  of  the 
north  and  northwestern  townships,  and  partly 
to  secure  to  West  Jersey  her  just  share  of  in- 
fluence in  the  State  Government."  At  last, 
after  a  hard  fight  under  the  lead  of  Captain 
John  W.  Mickle,  an  uncompromising  Demo- 
crat, they  won  and  got  the  Legislature,  which 
was  Democratic,  to  pass,  on  March  13,  1844, 
under  the  plea  that  the  new  county  would  be 
Democratic,  the  act  setting  it  off  from  Old 
Gloucester,  and  had  it  named  after  their  own 
city,  which  was  to  be  the  seat  of  justice  for  one 
year  and  until  an  election  could  be  had.  But 
the  people  throughout  the  county  were  so  in- 
censed at  the  city's  again  foiling  them  that  at 
the  first  election  they  voted,  irrespective  of 
party,  against  the  Democratic  nominees,  recog- 
nizing no  other  issue  than  Camden  and  Anti- 
Camden,  and  for  fifteen  years  the  Democrats 
never  carried  the  county.  For  many  years 
afterwards,  whenever  Captain  Mickle  went  to 
Trenton,  he  was  taunted  about  his  Democratic 
county ;  and  to  this  day  Camden  county  is  poli- 
tically anti-Democratic. 

The  same  antagonism  again  cropped  out  at 
the  permanent  fixing  of  the  county  seat.  The 
act  creating  Camden  county  required  that  its 
courts  should  be  held  at  the  Court  House  in 
Camden  for  one  year,  when,  at  an  election  to 


42  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

be  fixed  by  the  Freeholders,  the  location  of 
the  county  seat  was  to  be  determined  by  a 
majority  vote.  Camden,  of  course,  nominated 
herself  and  supported  her  nomination  with 
great  unanimity.  The  rest  of  the  county  was 
divided  in  its  choice.  At  the  election  held  on 
August  I2th,  1845,  to  determine  the  question, 
Camden  received  1,062,  Gloucester  822,  Had- 
donfield  422,  and  Mount  Ephraim  33  votes. 
No  place  receiving  a  majority,  a  statute  was 
approved  April  ist,  1846,  providing  for  two 
elections.  At  the  first  a  majority  of  votes 
was  necessary  to  a  choice.  If  no  place  re- 
ceived a  majority  then  a  second  election  was 
to  be  had  at  which  a  plurality  would  decide 
the  question.  No  place  having  received  a 
majority  at  the  first  election  held  under  that 
Act,  a  second  one  was  had,  when  the  county 
united  on  Long-a-Coming  (Berlin)  and  gave 
it  1,498  votes  while  Camden  received  but 
1,434  votes.  But  the  Camdenians  would  not 
stay  down,  and  in  1848,  aided  largely  by  the 
able  pugnacity  of  the  late  Abraham  Brown- 
ing, of  honored  memory,  after  continued  de- 
feats in  the  courts  had  a  statute  passed,  direct- 
ing a  new  election.  The  fourth  fight  was 
fourfold  bitter.  Again  it  was  the  whole  of  the 
country  against  the  city.  But  Camden  had 
well  encased  herself  in  armor  against  the 
shafts  of  her  opponents  in  her  unaided  tilt 
against  the  field,  and  came  out  victorious  with 
a  vote  of  2,444  against  795  for  Haddonfield 
and  705  for  Long-a-Coming.  This  last  elec- 
tion definitely  settled  the  contest,  the  country 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  43 

people  submitted  to  the  inevitable,  and  to- 
day admit  that,  however  unfairly  it  may  have 
been  made,  the  choice  was  a  wise  one. 

Immediately  after  the  settlement  of  this 
question  a  strong  rivalry  sprang  up  over  the 
location  of  the  court  house  between  John  W. 
Mickle,  president  of  the  Federal  Street  Ferry 
Company,  and  Abraham  Browning,  heavily 
interested  with  his  brothers  in  the  Market 
Street  Ferry,  founded  by  their  father,  Abra- 
ham Browning,  each  striving  to  have  it  placed 
on  the  street  leading  to  the  ferry  in  which  he 
was  interested,  in  the  hope  of  turning  to  that 
ferry  the  trend  of  travel.  The  struggle  was 
finally  settled  by  putting  the  Court  House 
equi-distant  from  each  ferry.  And  that  is 
the  reason  it  was  built  where  it  was,  on  the 
lot  nearest  to  the  ferries  that  extended  from 
Federal  to  Market  street,  and  placed  exactly 
midway  between  the  two  streets. 

The  beneficent  effect  of  building  and  loan 
associations,  the  first  of  which  is  said  to  have 
been  created  in  1815  by  the  canny  Scotch 
and  the  system  to  have  been  introduced  into 
our  country  about  the  year  1840,  was  early 
grasped  by  the  thrifty,  intelligent  business  and 
working  men  of  Camden.  The  New  Jersey 
statute  authorizing  the  incorporation  of  them 
was  approved  February  28th,  1849,  and  two 
months  had  hardly  passed,  when  on  May  5th, 
1849,  The  Camden  Building  Association  was 
incorporated  under  it,  followed  on  March  2d, 
1851,  by  The  South  Ward  Building  and  Loan 
Association.  And  thereafter  the  associations 


44  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

grew  continually  until  to-day  some  thirty  odd 
of  them  in  our  city  flourishingly  demonstrate 
their  value  in  aiding  their  members  to  acquire 
homes,  to  invest  with  profit  their  savings,  and 
to  educate  themselves  in  determining  the 
values  of  real  estate,  and  in  safely  investing 
money  therein. 

Of  the  two  public  utilities,  water  and  gas, 
water  was  first  furnished  to  Camden  by  a 
private  corporation.  The  Camden  Water 
Works  Company  supplied  from  its  pipes  on 
November  1st,  1846,  the  first  public  water  to 
the  city,  continuing  to  do  so  until  the  city 
purchased  its  plant  and  took  possession 
thereof  on  July  I,  1870.  Somewhat  more 
than  six  years  followed  the  introduction  of 
public  water  before  gas  for  lighting  was  fur- 
nished, which  has  always  been  supplied  by  a 
private  corporation.  The  Camden  Gas  Light 
Company  lighted  the  city  in  that  way  for  the 
first  time  on  Christmas  night,  1852,  a  year 
noted  also  for  the  completion  on  Market 
street  and  on  Federal  street  of  the  first  paving 
of  the  roadway  of  any  of  the  city  streets, 
cobble  stones  being  used  for  the  purpose. 

In  1850  Camden  obtained  a  new  charter 
with  enlarged  powers  but  no  increase  of  ter- 
ritory, divided,  however,  into  three  wards, 
North,  Middle  and  South,  and  began  to  grow 
with  considerable  energy,  until  the  horrible 
burning  of  the  ferryboat  New  Jersey,  on  the 
night  of  March  I5th,  1856,  with  its  holocaust 
of  sixty-one  lives,  at  once  checked  migrations 
from  Philadelphia,  while  the  panic  of  1857  fol- 


Of   CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  45 

lowing,  completed  the  blow  to  its  prosperity. 
Then  the  doubt  and  uncertainty  of  the  im- 
pending rebellion,  and  the  exhaustion  of  the 
struggle  when  entered  upon,  protracted  the 
stagnation,  and  our  city  lay  in  a  torpor  until 
late  after  the  collapse  of  the  war  the  prosper- 
ous times  thawed  it  into  new  life,  that,  burst- 
ing the  chrysalis  of  the  boundaries  of  its  origi- 
nal incorporation  of  1828,  reached  out  and 
grasped,  under  its  revised  charter  of  1871, 
new  territory,  increasing  its  size  three  fold. 
So  that  it  covered  all  the  territory  between  the 
Delaware  River  and  Cooper's  Creek  on  the 
river  front,  as  far  south  as  the  mouth  of  New- 
ton Creek,  up  which  the  boundary  ran  east- 
ward to  its  north  branch,  and  up  it  to  the 
Mount  Ephraim  road,  thence  up  to  Ferry 
avenue,  along  which  and  the  continuation 
thereof  in  a  right  line  it  extended  to  Cooper's 
Creek;  very  nearly  the  boundaries  of  the 
island  Aquikanasra  as  noted  and  mapped  by 
both  the  Dutch  and  the  Swedes  in  their  early 
surveys  of  the  Delaware. 

To  tell  the  whole  story  of  the  tried  loyalty 
of  Camden's  citizens  in  the  struggle  of  1861- 
65  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Union  would 
take  many  pages,  but  that  history  must  not 
pass  unnoted.  The  thrill  of  indignant  patriot- 
ism that  instantaneously  ran  through  the 
North,  when  rebellion  fired  its  first  shot  on 
Fort  Sumter,  fusing  all  citizens  alike  into  the 
Union  Party  for  the  sustaining  of  the  Govern- 
ment, caused  116  of  Camden's  citizens,  headed 
by  Dr.  Isaac  S.  Mulford,  a  Friend,  to  send 


46  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

to  President  Lincoln  on  April  i6th,  1861,  four 
days  after  that  first  shot  was  fired,  a  stirring 
address  in  which  they  "declare  our  unalterable 
determination  to  sustain  the  government  in 
its  efforts  to  maintain  the  honor,  the  integrity 
and  the  existence  of  our  National  Union  and 
the  perpetuity  of  the  popular  government,  and 
to  redress  the  wrongs  long  enough  endured, 
no  differences  of  political  opinion,  no  badge 
of  diversity  upon  points  of  party  distinction, 
shall  restrain  or  withhold  us  in  the  devotion 
of  all  we  have  or  can  command  to  the  vindica- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  the  maintenance  of 
the  laws  and  the  defence  of  the  Flag  of  our 
Country." 

Two  days  afterwards,  on  April  i8th,  a  great 
Union  meeting  was  held  at  the  Court  House, 
presided  over  by  John  W.  Mickle,  whose  Dem- 
ocracy was  only  exceeded  by  his  patriotism, 
and  who  closed  his  short  opening  speech  by 
saying  "That  flag  has  got  to  go  up."  Just  one 
week  later,  on  April  25th,  four  companies  of 
volunteers  went  to  Trenton  to  report  to  Gov- 
ernor Olden.  They  were  the  Washington 
Grays,  Captain  E.  Price  Hunt;  the  Camden 
Light  Artillery,  Captain  Isaac  W.  Mickle;  the 
Stockton  Cadets,  Captain  Edmund  G.  Jackson, 
and  the  Camden  Zouaves,  Captain  John  R. 
Cunningham. 

Camden,  having  by  the  census  of  1860  a 
pouplation  of  14,368,  followed  that  first  enthu- 
siastic rally  by  sending,  during  the  war,  over 
2,500  men  to  the  Union  army  and  navy,  a  con- 
tribution of  very  nearly  one-fifth  of  its  entire 
population  to  the  struggle  for  a  united  country. 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  47 

The  superiority  of  a  well  organized  paid 
service  for  the  extinguishment  of  fires  over  an 
unorganized  volunteer  one,  composed  of  many 
independent  separate  fire  companies  with  their 
turbulent  jealousies  and  rivalries,  so  impressed 
itself  on  City  Council  that,  by  ordinance  pass- 
ed on  September  2d,  1869,  it  organized  Cam- 
den's  well  managed  fire  department. 

In  the  year  1871,  when  the  Camden  Horse 
Railroad  Company  started  its  passenger  cars, 
came  what  all  had  been  hoping  for,  public  con- 
veyances enabling  everyone  to  ride  from  one 
end  of  the  city  to  the  other,  so  evidently  sup- 
plying a  public  want  that  the  West  Jersey 
Press  was  enabled  thus  exultantly  to  describe 
the  opening  of  the  lines  to  public  travel :  "Fed- 
eral street  had  a  huge  load  of  excitement  to 
stagger  under  on  Saturday  last,  and  the  street 
was  crowded  with  spectators  from  early  morn 
to  dewy  eve,  while  the  curbstone  corners  in 
particular  were  the  resorts  of  shouting  boys 
and  wondering  men.  A  long  wished  for  event 
came  to  pass,  and  a  new  era  in  the  growth  of 
the  city's  conveniences  was  successfully  in- 
augurated. In  a  word  the  new  horse  cars  be- 
gan to  run.  Let  us  mark  the  date,  November 
25th,  1871.  Such  occurrences  as  these  are 
mile  posts  in  the  history  of  our  city's  progress, 
and  should  be  recorded  as  worthy  of  special 
eclat." 

The  effort  for  the  establishment  of  a  library 
in  Camden  began  almost  with  the  incorpora- 
tion of  the  city.  The  Worthington  Library 


48  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

Company  organized  as  early  as  February, 
1838;  the  Camden  Literary  and  Library  As- 
sociation organized  January  23d,  1852;  the 
Camden  Library  Company,  incorporated 
March  iQth,  1878,  and  the  various  church 
libraries,  attest  to  efforts  made  to  fill  the  need 
felt  by  many  Camdenians  for  the  instruction, 
the  stimulus  and  the  pleasure  of  books.  But, 
none  of  these  library  associations  were  per- 
manent, and  their  books  disappeared  when  they 
did.  It  was  not  until  the  voluntary  free  pub- 
lic library,  opened  on  November  28th,  1898, 
in  the  old  family  mansion  in  Cooper  Park, 
and,  with  aid  from  the  city,  carried  on  there 
for  four  years,  so  educated  the  people  to  the 
value  to  be  gained  from  free  libraries,  that 
they  adopted,  at  the  election  held  in  November, 
1902',  the  provisions  of  New  Jersey's  free 
library  law,  taxing  themselves  one-third  of  a 
mill  on  every  dollar  of  their  assessable  prop- 
erty for  the  support  of  a  library.  Thus  the 
free  library  became  a  permanent  feature  of 
Camden,  allowing  her  to  take  her  position  in 
line  with  the  other  advanced  cities  and  towns 
of  New  Jersey  that  had  adopted  that  statute. 
Then,  with  Andrew  Carnegie's  gift  of  $120,- 
ooo  for  proper  library  buildings,  was  built  the 
Main  Library  at  Broadway  and  Line  street, 
opened  on  June  27th,  1905,  and  the  East 
Branch,  opened  on  June  i8th,  1906,  and  also 
was  remodelled  and  enlarged  the  Cooper 
Branch,  reopened  on  September  loth,  1907; 
each  building  an  ornament  to  its  locality. 


OF  CAMDEN,  NEW  JERSEY.  49 

From  a  desire  for  political  or  territorial 
aggrandizement,  towns  at  times  seek  con- 
tiguous smaller  ones  that,  having  acquired  a 
distinctive  life  of  their  own,  which  they  prize, 
surrender  it  only  under  compulsion.  But,  that 
charge  cannot  be  brought  against  Camden  in 
its  next  increase  of  territory.  At  the  request 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  of  Stockton, 
conscious  that  their  prosperity  and  happiness 
would  be  enhanced  thereby,  was  passed  the 
act  of  March  24th,  1899,  annexing  that  town 
to  the  city  of  Camden,  enlarging  its  boundary 
one-third  and  its  population  one-sixth.  And 
so  fitting  and  complete  was  the  amalgamation 
that  that  addition  is  to-day  as  blended  a  part 
of  the  life  of  the  city  as  is  any  other  section 
of  its  territory.  So  much  so  that  on  the  locat- 
ing of  the  free  library  buildings  one  was  placed 
in  that  new  territory  without  dissent. 

Grown  metropolitan  in  size  and  importance, 
the  time  had  come  in  the  judgment  of  City 
Council  for  Camden  to  be  no  longer  without 
a  coat  of  arms,  and  it  invited  the  Camden 
County  Historical  Society  to  suggest  one. 
The  Society  did  so  with  the  motto  "Virtus  et 
Industria."  Council  adopted  both  suggestions 
on  February  28th,  1907.  The  design  is  a 
shield,  the  dexter  half  containing  the  arms  of 
Lord  Camden,  the  sinister  half  an  antique  ship 
in  the  stocks  ready  for  launching,  indicative  of 
Camden's  shipbuilding  industries;  supporters 
personifying  industry  and  knowledge;  the  old 
locomotive  that  first  ran  into  Camden,  emble- 
matic of  the  city  of  to-day,  the  great  railroad 
4 


5O  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

centre  of  West  Jersey;  Lord  Camden's  crest, 
and  the  pine  tree  springing  from  it,  typifying 
the  primeval  forest  that  covered  so  much  of 
Camden's  territory  and  recalling  the  origin  of 
its  first  name,  Pyne  Poynte. 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  5! 


Chapter  3 

Of  incidents  historic  and  biographic  in  Cam- 
den's  life  the  setting  down  of  a  few  may  make 
more  vivid  its  retrospect. 

The  establishment  of  the  first  bank  of  issue 
in  New  Jersey,  if  not  in  America,  almost  at 
Camden's  door,  is  closely  enough  connected 
with  her  first  settlers  to  be  named  as  the 
earliest  of  such  incidents.  Mark  Newbie,  who 
lived,  Mickle  says,  on  the  farm  afterwards 
owned  by  Joseph  B.  Cooper,  where  is  now  the 
Borough  of  Wood-Lynne,  and  Judge  Clement 
says,  on  the  Champion  road  just  west  of  the 
West  Collingswood  railroad  station,  brought 
with  him  from  London  a  large  number  of  cop- 
per coins,  made  in  Ireland  by  the  Roman 
Catholics  after  the  massacre  there  in  1641  and 
known  as  Patrick's  half-pence.  The  New  Jer- 
sey Assembly  in  May,  1682,  by  statute  au- 
thorized their  circulation  by  Newbie  as  cur- 
rency and  made  them  a  legal  tender  to  the 
amount  of  five  shillings,  provided  he,  Mark, 
should  give  security  for  their  redemption  on 
demand,  which  he  did  by  mortgaging  for 
that  purpose  300  acres  of  his  land.  And  so 
the  much  needed  currency  was  for  several 
years  supplied  to  Camden's  pioneers  and  to 
their  neighbors.  Those  coins  are  now  very 
rare  and  not  to  be  found  except  in  a  few  numis- 
matic collections. 

The  honor  of  being  the  first  place  in  the 
United  States  to  form  a  Republican  Club  is 


52  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

claimed  for  Camden  with  force.  At  the  Re- 
publican National  Convention,  held  in  Phila- 
delphia in  1856,  that  priority  was  awarded  to 
Michigan,  it  being  shown  that  such  a  club  was 
formed  in  that  State  in  May,  1854.  Framing- 
ton,  Massachussetts,  also  claims  to  have 
formed  one  in  the  same  month.  But,  the  Jef- 
ferson Republican  Club  of  Camden  was  or- 
ganized April  6th,  1854,  at  the  old  Camden 
City  Court  House,  by  the  election  of  Joseph  M. 
Cooper,  as  president;  Edward  N.  Dougherty, 
as  secretary,  and  Dr.  Sylvester  Birdsall  as 
treasurer.  It  really  had  its  start  in  the  old 
South  Ward  (now  the  Fifth  and  Sixth 
Wards),  in  the  summer  of  1852,  when  a  num- 
ber of  Whigs  declared  themselves  for  Hale 
and  Julian,  the  candidates  for  President  and 
Vice  President  of  the  Free  Soil  Party.  At  the 
election  in  November  following,  South  Ward 
cast  1 8  votes  for  that  ticket,  while  Middle  and 
North  Wards  each  cast  but  one  vote  for  it. 
So  belongs  to  Camden  the  first  Republican 
club  of  our  country  and  to  old  South  Ward 
the  impetus  from  which  it  sprang. 

Not  alone  in  that  priority  in  matters  of  State 
and  of  National  public  interest  has  Camden 
rested  content.  If  with  none  others  of  such 
broad  import,  with  those  of  local  consequence, 
in  leading  her  own  life,  she  has  led  her  great 
sister  Philadelphia.  She  established  her  first 
building  and  loan  association  more  than  a  year 
before  Philadelphia  grasped  the  value  of  the 
system.  Philadelphia,  with  market  sheds  yet 
in  her  streets,  clings  to  what  Camden  deemed, 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  53 

more  than  thirty  years  ago,  unsightly  and  un- 
clean. For  a  year  after  Camden  adopted  and 
inaugurated  her  paid  fire  department  Philadel- 
phia remained  content  with  the  antiquated 
volunteer  fire  companies.  The  trolley  system 
for  street  cars  developed  on  Market  street, 
Camden,  its  superiority  over  horse  cars  for 
that  public  service  some  time  before  Philadel- 
phia awakened  to  the  importance  of  Camden's 
demonstration.  In  the  fall  of  the  year  1897 
the  supplying  of  pure  water  to  Camden  from 
its  plant  of  artesian  wells  at  Delair  was  in- 
augurated, giving  a  quality  of  water  unsur- 
passed, if  equalled,  by  any  city,  cool  enough 
when  direct  from  the  hydrant  to  be  pleasantly 
potable  in  the  hottest  weather  and  so  pure  as 
to  have  driven  typhoid  fever  practically  from 
the  city.  Its  fame  has  spread  to  the  Orient, 
and  so  impressed  the  United  States  Minister 
at  Bangkok  ("City  of  wild  fruit  trees"), 
Capital  of  Siam,  a  city  he  estimates  of  1,000,- 
ooo  inhabitants,  that  on  January  4th,  1909,  he 
wrote  to  the  Camden  Water  Department  for 
copies  of  its  report  for  the  year  1908.  No 
part  of  Philadelphia  had  filtered  water  in  the 
year  1897,  nor  for  several  years  afterward, 
and  sections  of  it  struggled  with  the  factory 
refuse,  coal  dust  and  sewage-laden  Schuylkill 
and  Delaware  River  waters  until  the  spring 
of  1909,  when  filtered  water  was  finally  sup- 
plied to  all  its  parts. 

In  citizens  of  broad  charity  and  public  spirit 
Camden  has  not  lacked  from  its  start.  Within 
three  years  of  his  planning  the  town,  Jacob 


54  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

Cooper,  on  April  22d,  1776,  for  the  nominal 
consideration  of  five  shillings,  conveyed  to 
Charles  Lyons  and  others,  trustees  "for  build- 
ing a  place  of  public  worship  and  a  burying 
ground,"  lot  127  at  the  northwest  corner  of 
Fifth  and  Arch  streets,  now  occupied  by  fire 
houses,  and  lots  158  and  159  at  the  northwest 
corner  of  Sixth  and  Arch  streets.  And,  on 
June  23,  1804,  his  grandchildren  supplemented 
his  gift  of  the  latter  lots  by  deeding  the  ad- 
joining lots  156  and  157,  at  the  southwest 
corner  of  Sixth  and  Market  streets  to  Edward 
Smith  and  William  Flintham,  of  Philadelphia, 
and  George  Genge  and  Thomas  Ackley,  of 
Camden,  in  trust  "to  build  thereon  and  main- 
tain a  school  house,  and  a  dwelling  house  for 
a  teacher."  The  lot  at  Fifth  and  Arch  streets 
was  used  as  a  "burying  ground"  for  many 
years,  but  there  had  been  no  burials  there  for 
a  long  time  prior  to  the  building  of  the  first 
fire  house  thereon.  No  "place  of  public  wor- 
ship" was  built  on  the  lots  at  the  corner  of 
Sixth  and  Arch  streets.  The  Academy,  how- 
ever, was  built  by  subscription  on  the  lots  at 
the  corner  of  Sixth  and  Market  streets,  and 
stood  there  for  nearly  sixty  years,  accommo- 
dating schools  and  public  gatherings.  The 
"dwelling  house  for  a  teacher"  was  never 
built.  George  Genge,  one  of  the  trustees  for 
the  Academy  lot,  by  his  will,  dated  September 
28th,  1828,  bequeathed  to  the  trustees  of  Cam- 
den  Academy  an  annuity  of  eighty  dollars  "to 
the  only  and  exclusive  use  of  paying  the  edu- 
cation of  poor  children  in  the  Academy,  or 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  55 

other  school  house  erected  on  either  of  the  two 
lots,  156  and  157."  By  an  act  of  the  Legis- 
lature, approved  March  2d,  1854,  that  annuity 
was  authoried  to  be  extinguished  by  the  pay- 
ment to  those  trustees  of  the  sum  of  $1,333-34, 
the  principal  producing  it  at  six  per  centum 
interest  per  annum.  By  a  subsequent  act,  ap- 
proved March  I5th,  1854,  the  trustees  were 
authorized  to  convey  the  Academy  lot  and 
premises  to  the  Board  of  Education  of  the 
City  of  Camden,  to  be  by  it  held  "so  long  as 
the  same  are  used  by  the  said  board  exclusively 
for  the  purpose  of  education,"  and  were  di- 
rected to  pay  to  it  prior  to  the  delivery  of 
such  deed  all  the  moneys  held  by  them  as 
such  trustees  to  be  by  it  used  for  public  school 
purposes.  The  public  school  being  free  to  all 
children  the  charitable  object  of  George  Genge 
was  thus  faithfully  perpetuated.  Because  of 
that  bequest  the  present  school  house  on  that 
lot,  built  in  1863,  was  fittingly  named  George 
Genge  School. 

Joseph  Kaighn,  one  of  Camden's  principal 
citizens,  who  started  in  1809  the  first  ferry  to 
Philadelphia  from  Kaighn's  Point,  who  was 
president  of  the  original  Federal  street  ferry 
from  its  start  in  1836  until  his  death  in  1841 ; 
who,  for  several  years,  was  in  the  Legislature 
as  a  representative  and  as  a  Senator ;  and  who 
took  an  active  part  in  all  things  concerning 
Camden's  best  movements,  gave  the  valuable 
lot  of  ground  on  which  the  Kaighn  school 
now  stands.  He  greatly  aided,  without  pay, 
his  cousin,  Sarah  Kaighn,  in  her  business 


56  HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

affairs,  who  to  compensate  him  offered  to 
convey  to  him  that  lot.  He  asked  her  to  con- 
vey it  instead  to  the  public  for  school  pur- 
poses. She  did  so,  by  deed  to  him  and  others 
in  trust,  dated  March  8th,  1821.  The  deed 
was  hers  but  the  gift  was  his. 

Richard  M.  Cooper,  president  of  The  State 
Bank  at  Camden  from  1813  until  1842,  when 
he  declined  a  re-election,  died  March  loth, 
1844,  leaving  a  large  landed  estate  in  the 
upper  part  of  Camden,  which  his  bachelor 
twin  sons,  Dr.  Richard  M.  Cooper  and 
Lawyer  William  D.  Cooper  so  successfully 
managed  that,  when  they  died,  respectively, 
in  the  year  1874  and  in  the  year  1875,  the 
estate  had  grown  to  be  a  very  valuable  one. 
Dr.  Cooper  was  one  of  Camden's  leading 
physicians,  whose  professional  knowledge  and 
experience  taught  him  the  importance  of  a 
good  hospital  and  its  aid  to  the  community. 
His  brother,  William,  agreed  with  him  in  the 
value  of  a  hospital,  and  together  they  hoped 
that  the  estate  they  inherited,  and  which  had 
so  increased  under  their  charge,  might  be 
devoted  to  the  establishment  and  maintenance 
of  one  in  Camden.  They  died  before  their 
accomplishment  of  that  hope.  But  their 
maiden  sisters,  Sarah  W.  Cooper  and  Eliza- 
beth B.  Cooper,  their  devisees,  knowing  their 
wish,  carried  it  into  effect  by  procuring  from 
the  Legislature  the  charter  for  "The  Camden 
Hospital,"  approved  March  24th,  1875,  and 
the  giving  to  it  of  $200,000  in  money  and  the 
conveying  to  it,  by  them  and  their  brother 


SECOND  CITY  HALL 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  57 

Alexander  Cooper,  of  the  very  valuable  lot  of 
land  now  occupied  by  the  hospital. 

In  1877  the  main  building  of  the  hospital 
was  completed;  in  1903  the  nurses'  home  was 
built  and  in  1907  the  north  wing  to  the  main 
building  was  added.  The  Cooper  sisters  con- 
sented to  the  urgent  request  of  the  hospital 
trustees,  that  they  might  apply  to  the  L,egis- 
laure  for  an  act  changing  the  corporate  name 
to  "The  Cooper  Hospital,"  the  name  by  which 
it  had  become  popularly  known,  and  on 
March  6th,  1877,  the  act  making  such  change 
was  approved.  That  its  endowment  might  be 
increased  by  the  addition  of  the  income 
thereof  to  the  principal,  its  opening  was  de- 
layed until  August  nth,  1887.  Since  then  its 
beneficent  work,  aided  by  the  liberal  gifts  of 
$100,000  by  John  W.  Wright,  nephew  of  the 
founders;  of  $50,000  by  William  B.  Cooper, 
of  $10,000  by  Judge  John  Clement  and  of 
$21,000  by  Jane  B.  Chambers,  in  the  name 
of  her  father,  Joseph  Bedlam,  and  the  gifts  of 
generous  endowers  of  beds  has  gone  on  to  the 
great  good  of  all  South  Jersey. 

Jesse  W.  Starr,  one  of  Camden's  leading 
manufacturers,  who  with  his  brother,  ex-Con- 
gressman John  F.  Starr,  established  and  most 
successfully  carried  on  for  many  years  the 
Camden  Iron  Works,  whose  residence  was 
near  the  centre  of  beautifully  laid-out  grounds 
bounded  by  Newton  avenue,  Haddon  avenue 
and  Line  street,  gave  to  Camden,  by  deed 
dated  July  loth,  1871,  the  land  on  which  the 
City  Hall  stands,  upon  condition  that  such  a 


58  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

hall  should  be  begun  thereon  within  three 
years  and  be  completed  within  five  years,  and 
that  that  ground  should  always  be  used  for  a 
City  Hall  and  public  park,  and  if  it  should 
cease  to  be  so  used  it  should  revert  to  him  and 
his  heirs.  There  were  then  no  houses  in  that 
neighborhood  east  of  the  west  side  of  Broad- 
way, nor  between  Newton  avenue  and  the 
Camden  and  Amboy  Railroad,  and  the  site 
seemed  so  in  the  open  country  that  Council 
delayed  the  acceptance  of  the  gift  until  1874, 
just  before  the  expiration  of  the  time  limited 
for  the  commencement  of  the  building  of  a 
hall,  when  against  the  strongly-expressed 
wishes  of  many  citizens  it  built  the  present 
one.  On  July  2d,  1874,  Mr.  Starr  gave  to  the 
city,  by  deed,  the  land  on  which  the  Soldiers' 
Monument  stands,  and  upon  the  same  condi- 
tion. Wishing  to  own  the  land  free  of  the 
condition,  Camden,  on  December  2Oth,  1883, 
paid  to  Mr.  Starr  $10,831.89  for  an  absolute 
conveyance  of  all  the  land  bounded  by  Had- 
don  avenue,  Washington  street  and  Seventh 
street. 

Other  instances  of  public  spirit  on  the  part 
of  her  people  might  well  be  cited  to  show  that 
Camden  has  never  lacked  citizens  who  felt 
their  duty  to  their  fellow-men  and  whose 
loyalty  thereto  made  them  glad  to  contribute 
what  they  could  to  aid  her  public  weal. 

From  the  effort  of  the  North  Ward  Bounty 
Association,  formed,  near  the  close  of  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion,  to  raise  money  to  pay 
bounties  to  volunteers  to  serve  in  the  place 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  59 

of  its  members  who  might  be  drafted  for  the 
army,  The  Camden  City  Dispensary  had  its 
origin.  At  Lee's  surrender,  in  1865,  that 
Association  had  in  its  treasury  a  balance 
which  it  resolved  should  be  used  for  charity. 
Col.  Thomas  McKeen,  its  treasurer,  strongly 
urged  that  the  money  be  given  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  dispensary,  and  after  consulta- 
tion with  members  of  The  Camden  County 
Medical  Society  that  was  decided  to  be  done. 
A  committee  of  the  Association,  aided  by  one 
of  the  Medical  Society,  purchased  the  Perse- 
verance Hose  House,  then  standing  on  the 
east  side  of  Third  street,  below  Market  street. 
The  Camden  City  Dispensary  was  incorpo- 
rated February  5th,  1867.  It  received  from 
that  draft  fund  $3,776.94  and  carried  on  its 
good  work  in  the  old  hose  house  until  that 
was  sold  in  1890,  when  the  Dispensary  was 
moved  to  its  present  building,  No.  725  Fed- 
eral street,  which  it  built  in  1891  and  where, 
aided  by  bequests,  and  an  annual  appropria- 
tion from  City  Council,  it  freely  administers 
to  all  needing  its  aid. 

The  Camden  Home  for  Friendless  Children 
was  incorporated  April  6th,  1865,  and  was 
formally  opened  on  May  3Oth,  1865.  The  first 
child  was  admitted  May  8th,  1865.  The  West 
Jersey  Orphanage  for  Destitute  Colored  Chil- 
dren was  incorporated  February  I7th,  1874, 
and  opened  January  2Oth,  1875.  Each  of 
those  charities  since  its  opening  has  unostenta- 
tiously carried  on  its  good  work. 


60  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

Several  dwelling  houses  in  Camden  are  over 
one  hundred  years  old.  The  old  yellow  house 
at  Point  and  Erie  streets,  built  in  1734,  as  the 
stone  in  its  gable  end  mutely  testifies,  wras  the 
headquarters  of  the  British  General  Aber- 
crombie  while  Philadelphia  was  occupied  by 
the  British  during  the  Revolutionary  War. 
The  one-and-a-half -story  stone  house  occupied 
by  the  Pyne  Poynt  Library  is  probably  oldef 
than  that  old  yellow  house,  but  there  is  no  rec- 
ord of  the  date  of  its  erection.  The  old  Kaighin 
homestead,  at  the  southeast  corner  of  Second 
and  Sycamore  streets,  originally  two  stories 
high  in  its  centre  with  a  one-story  wing  at  each 
end,  with  its  length  parallel  with  the  river,  was 
built  between  1700  and  1710  of  bricks  brought 
from  England.  Much  older  than  a  century  is 
the  old  stone  farm  house  on  the  river  bank 
just  below  Jasper  street,  the  birthplace  of  Isaac 
Mickle,  whose  "Reminiscences  of  Old  Glouces- 
ter" has  been  truly  said  have  been  written 
"With  a  wealth  of  erudition  and  classic  allusion 
that  makes  the  book  to  this  day  one  of  the 
most  readable  contributions  to  our  local  his- 
tory."1 

An  interesting  memento  of  a  long  past  is  the 
hexagonal  mile  stone  in  front  of  St.  John's 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  at  the  curbstone 
on  Broadway,  just  above  Royden  street.  Good 
taste  has  kept  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  long  will 
keep  it,  where  it  was  first  set,  then  on  the 
"Woodbury  road"  in  front  of  a  farm  field. 

i  William  Nelson's  address  before  N.  J.  Historical  Society,  May 
16,  1895. 


OLD  MILE  STONE 


OF   CAMDEN,    NEW   JERSEY.  6 1 

The  inscription  on  it,  cut  long  before  our  town 
was  known  as  Camden,  is : 

"i  Mile  to  Coop's  Fy's 
to  Salem." 

The  distance  to  Salem  has  become  obliter- 
ated, but  the  rest  of  its  lettering  is  clear. 

The  first  Camden  county  courts  were  held 
in  the  old  city  court  house  on  Federal  street. 
Small  and  homely  in  its  lack  of  any  architec- 
tural merit,  as  great  a  contrast  to  the  chaste 
charm  of  our  present  beautiful  Court  House 
as  it  is  possible  for  any  building  to  be,  it  an- 
swered the  purpose  for  a  decade,  or  until  the 
county  built  the  old  Court  House  on  Broad- 
way, the  corner-stone  of  which  was  laid  on 
June  26th,  1852,  and  which  was  torn  down  in 
1903  to  make  room  for  the  present  one,  the 
corner-stone  of  which  was  laid  on  August  i8th, 
1904,  and  the  beauty  and  harmony  of  whose 
perfect  dome  and  every  outline  is  a  continued 
joy  to  view. 

New  Jersey,  happily  not  a  land  of  earth- 
quakes, is  not  without  their  experience.  Smith, 
in  his  "History  of  New  Jersey,"  states  that,  in 
November,  1726,  a  small  one  was  felt  between 
the  hours  of  ten  and  eleven  at  night;  that  on 
September  5th,  1732,  "about  noon  a  small 
shock  of  earthquake  was  felt" ;  that  on  Decem- 
ber 7th,  1737,  "at  night  was  a  large  shock  of 
earthquake,  accompanied  with  a  remarkable 
rumbling  noise ;  people  waked  in  their  beds,  the 
doors  flew  open,  bricks  fell  from  the  chimneys, 
the  consternation  was  serious,  but  happily  no 


62  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

great  damage  ensued";  and  that  November 
1 8th,  1755,  "at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
was  a  considerable  shock  of  an  earthquake, 
which  lasted  about  two  minutes.  *  *  *  It 
did  not  begin  with  so  much  of  a  rumbling 
noise  as  that  in  1737,  but  was  thought  not  to 
fall  short  in  the  concussion."  One  hundred 
and  twenty-nine  years  after  Smith's  last  rec- 
ord Camden  experienced  an  earthquake.  It 
came  on  Sunday  afternoon,  August  loth,  1884, 
a  clear  day,  about  ten  or  twelve  minutes  past 
two  o'clock,  without  rumble  or  other  warning, 
in  three  distinct  tremors,  the  last  lighter  than 
the  first  two  and  was  over  in  a  few  seconds. 
The  walls  of  strong  stone  houses  shook  per- 
ceptibly and  the  bells  in  large  brick  houses 
rang.  People  walking  along  the  street  appear- 
ed not  to  notice  it,  but  to  many  within  well- 
built  houses  the  sensation  of  irresistible  tremb- 
ling of  floors  and  distinct  shaking  of  stout 
walls  gave  a  feeling  of  instability  never  before 
experienced.  The  earthquake  was  very  gen- 
eral over  the  Eastern  United  States,  toppling 
over  chimneys,  but  doing  little  other  damage. 

A  year  afterwards,  on  Monday,  August  3d, 
1885,  a  terrible  wind  cyclone,  twice  crossing 
the  Delaware,  swept  over  Camden  between  the 
river  and  Sixth  street,  from  Kaighn's  Point 
to  Cooper's  Point,  killing  five  persons  and  seri- 
ously wounding  over  thirty  others,  unroofing 
houses,  schools,  churches  and  buildings  of 
every  kind,  and  demolishing  large  parts  of 
their  walls.  It  followed  a  rain  of  several 
hours,  but  did  not  last  more  than  five  minutes, 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  63 

yet  in  that  time  it  was  estimated  that,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  deaths  and  wounding  of  many  peo- 
ple, the  loss  to  property  amounted  to  from  a 
half  a  million  to  a  million  of  dollars.  As  it 
passed  his  shipyard  at  Kaighn's  Point,  John 
H.  Dialogue  saw  a  huge  ball  of  fire,  looking  to 
him  to  be  ten  feet  in  diameter,  accompany  the 
storm  and  explode  about  two  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  north  of  him  with  a  report  that  shook 
the  foundations  of  the  buildings  in  his  ship- 
yard. At  the  time  the  sky  eastward  of  the 
narrow  belt  of  the  cyclone  was  unusually  bright 
with  a  rainbow  effect. 

The  most  prominent  feature  in  the  view 
over  the  Delaware  from  Camden's  shore  for 
more  than  a  century  prior  to  its  removal  by 
the  United  States  Government,  in  1894,  in  its 
improvement  of  the  channel  of  the  river,  was 
Windmill  Island,  extending,  at  its  removal, 
from  about  opposite  Berkley  street  to  about 
opposite  Arch  street,  with  bars  at  each  end, 
extending  southward  to  Line  street  and 
northward  to  nearly  opposite  Linden  street, 
and  originally  to  the  fast  land  at  Cooper's 
Point.  Shown  as  a  bar  in  1681  on  Holm's 
map  of  the  Delaware  river,  it  had  grown  to 
be  a  firm  island  in  the  middle  of  the  next  cen- 
tury, when  John  Harding  built  on  it  a  wind- 
mill, whence  its  name.  And,  later,  when 
Joseph  Wright,  of  Philadelphia,  in  1786, 
established  his  ferry  from  Robert  Wain's 
wharf  below  the  drawbridge  over  Dock  creek 
(now  Dock  street),  Philadelphia,  to  Camden, 
he  made  on  the  island  a  landing  where  he 


64  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

erected  a  half-way  house  and  published  that 
"Passengers  would  always  meet  with  hearty 
welcome  and  a  hospitable  fire  in  the  cold  sea- 
son to  warm  and  refresh  themselves  while 
waiting  for  an  opportunity  of  evading  those 
large  fields  of  ice  which  generally  float  up  and 
down  with  the  tide  and  obstruct  the  passage 
during  winter."  A  graphic  glimpse  of  the 
difficulty  besetting  the  crossing  of  the  Dela- 
ware in  the  open  wherries  when  the  cold  was 
not  severe  enough  to  so  freeze  it  as  to  enable 
it  to  be  crossed  on  the  ice.  A  difficulty  inten- 
sified in  stormy  weather  when  umbrellas,  were 
they  then  used,  could  not  have  been  raised  lest 
they  impede  the  boats.  Edward  Sharp,  in 
1820,  tried  to  solve  the  problem  of  a  better 
crossing  of  the  river  by  a  bridge  to  be  built 
from  Camden  to  the  island,  so  that  only  the 
narrow  channel  between  it  and  Philadelphia 
would  have  to  be  crossed  by  a  ferry.  In  his 
furtherance  thereof  he  laid  out  Bridge  avenue 
one  hundred  feet  wide  on  his  plan  of  the  con- 
tinuation of  "Camden  Village,"  from  which 
his  bridge,  that,  from  want  of  financial  aid, 
never  materialized,  was  to  start.  When  the 
Camden  and  Amboy  Railroad  was  built,  and 
its  Philadelphia  landing  fixed  at  the  foot  of 
Walnut  street,  near  the  location,  in  1786,  of 
Joseph  Wright's  ferry  landing,  the  island  was 
such  an  impediment  to  the  crossing  of  the 
river  by  its  boats,  that  the  company  procured 
from  the  Pennsylvania  Legislature  authority 
to  cut  a  canal  through  it.  Begun  in  1837, 
finished  in  1838,  the  canal  was  kept  open  so 


WALT  WHITMAN'S  TOMB 


OE   CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  65 

long  as  the  island  remained  in  the  river.  In 
the  nineteenth  century,  Thomas  Smith  be- 
came the  owner  of  the  northern  end  of  the 
island,  and  he  and  his  heirs  held  the  ownership 
and  kept  there  a  public  garden  until  within  a 
few  years  of  its  removal,  so  that  it  became 
commonly  called  Smith's  Island  during  all 
the  latter  years  of  its  existence. 

Besides  Camden's  association  with  Wash- 
ington, Franklin,  Wayne  and  Pulaski,  there  is 
linked  with  its  history  the  names  of  four  other 
noted  men  of  widely-different  fame. 

The  great  Indian  chief,  Tammany,  patron 
saint  of  that  powerful  organization  of  the  New 
York  City  Democracy  bearing  his  name,  died 
on  Pea  Shore,  according  to  a  tradition  so 
firmly  fixed  that  it  is  but  emphasized  in  the 
location,  by  the  Tammany  Fishing  Club,  for 
many  years  of  its  club  house  there,  now  within 
the  city  limits.  Until  shortly  before  the  nine- 
teenth century  a  forest  stood  along  the  Dela- 
ware River,  between  Bridge  avenue  and  Line 
street,  called  by  a  name  singularly  like  Tam- 
many's woods.1  The  eccentric  Colonel  David 
Crockett,  then  a  Representative  in  Congress 
from  Kentucky,  stopped  at  Camden  on  his 
way  to  Washington  in  1831  or  1832,  staying 
at  the  hotel  of  Isaiah  Toy,  afterwards  and 
until  it  was  torn  down,  in  1882,  well  known 
as  Parsons'  Hotel,  which  stood  on  the  north 
side  of  Federal  street  just  above  Front  street, 
then  close  to  the  ferry  landing.  While  there 
Crockett  went  with  some  friends  to  a  shooting 

i  Mickle,  pp.  19,  46. 
5 


66  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

match  held  near  the  present  Court  House, 
then  in  full  view  of  the  Camden  and  Amboy 
(now  Pennsylvania)  Railroad.  As  he  was 
shooting,  the  first  locomotive  of  that  road 
passed.  Gazing  at  it  in  wonder  he  exclaimed, 
"Hell  in  harness!"  The  distinguished  orni- 
thologist, John  James  Audubon,  lived  for  a 
short  time  in  a  small  two-and-a-half  story 
brick  house  that  stood  on  the  south  side  of 
Cooper  street,  nearly  opposite  Friends'  ave- 
nue, and  was  torn  down  in  1901.  Walt  Whit- 
man's home  in  Camden  for  the  last  nineteen 
year  of  his  life,  from  1873  to  1892,  has  made 
it  known  and  linked  its  name  with  his  fame, 
wherever  his  "Leaves  of  Grass"  is  read.  His 
plain  old-fashioned  two-story  frame  house, 
No.  328  Mickle  street,  and  his  tomb,  in  beau- 
tiful Harleigh  Cemetery,  designed  by  himself, 
striking  in  its  massive  simplicity,  are  the  two 
points  of  interest  sought  by  all  his  admirers 
visiting  Camden. 


WALT  WHITMAN'S  HOME 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  67 


Chapter  4 

Around  Camden  cling  aboriginal  legend  and 
pioneer  romance  enriching  her  story  of  the 
past. 

David  Peterson  De  Vries,  the  Dutch  com- 
mander, who  first  came  to  New  Jersey  in  1631, 
with  a  colony  of  thirty-four  Dutch  settlers,  left 
them  at  Fort  Nassau  (near  Gloucester  Point), 
and  returned  to  Holland.  During  his  absence, 
the  colonists  raised  over  the  fort  his  standard, 
which  an  Indian  stole  and  for  which  they  hung 
him.  That,  with  outrages  committed  on  the 
Indian  wives,  so  exasperated  the  Indians  that 
they  massacred  the  whole  Dutch  settlement, 
and  when  De  Vries  returned,  in  1632,  he  found 
no  sign  of  his  colonists  except  their  bones. 
The  Indians  charged  with  the  massacre  con- 
fessed it  with  much  pretended  penitence.  De 
Vries,  being  in  sore  need  of  food,  and  in  no 
condition  to  punish  them,  made  a  new  treaty 
with  them  for  a  supply  of  venison  and  corn. 
Pretending  to  fulfill  their  agreement  the  In- 
dians decoyed  De  Vries  from  Fort  Nassau  and 
up  Timmerkill  (Cooper's  Creek)  with  his 
vessel  and  crew  on  the  pretence  that  on  that 
stream  provision  was  stored.  Sailing  up  the 
creek  he  came  to  anchor  near  Red  Hill,  or 
Ward's  Mount,  in  Forest  Hill  Park.  In  the 
hearing  of  a  young  Indian  mother,  whom  they 
thought  slept,  the  Indians  planned  to  waylay 
and  slay  the  Dutch  when  they  landed.  The 
young  mother,  of  unknown  name,  in  her  quick- 


68  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

vvitted  mercy  and  brave  determination  to  save 
the  palefaces  from  the  doom  designed  for 
them,  rivalled  Pocahontas,  and  so  soon  as  the 
conference  of  the  chiefs  ended,  at  the  risk  of 
her  life,  went  in  the  night  to  the  creek, 
paddled  in  a  canoe  to  De  Vries'  vessel  and 
told  him  of  the  plot.  So  warned,  he  sailed 
back  at  once  to  Fort  Nassau  to  find  that,  ex- 
pecting his  slaughter  up  the  creek,  the  Indians 
were  in  possession  of  the  empty  fort.  Con- 
cealing their  surprise  they  came  in  their 
canoes  and  surrounded  his  vessel.  Deeming  it 
prudent  not  to  attack  them,  De  Vries  said  to 
them  the  Great  Spirit  had  told  him  of  their 
treachery,  and  before  he  was  directed  to  use 
on  them  the  thunder  of  his  swivel  gun  they 
had  better  leave.  They  did  so,  and  De  Vries 
soon  after  sailed  out  of  the  Delaware,  aban- 
doning the  effort  of  the  Dutch  to  colonize  New 
Jersey.1  A  well-told  story,  founded  on  this 
incident,  entitled  "Mahala,  a  Legend  of  New 
Jersey,"  was  published  in  Miss  Leslie's  Mag- 
azine in  1843,  and  reprinted  in  the  West  Jer- 
sey Press,  on  March  ist,  1876. 

Though  Elizabeth  Haddon's  home,  after 
emigrating  to  New  Jersey,  was  first  at  Coles' 
Landing  on  Cooper's  Creek,  and  afterwards  at 
Haddonfield,  her  close  social  and  religious 
association  with  Camden's  first  settlers,  she  and 
they  alike  worshipping  in  the  same  Friends' 
log  meeting-house  at  what  is  now  West 
Collingswood  railroad  station,  and  her  niece 
Mary  Estaugh  marrying  Joseph  Kaighin,  son 
of  John  Kaighin,  the  emigrant,  causes  her 

i  Gordon's  History  of  New  Jersey,  p.  9. 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  69 

romance  to  so  linger  about  their  lives  as  to 
justify  its  mention  as  fittingly  a  part  of  Cam- 
den's  story.  Read  in  Lydia  Maria  Childs' 
"Tale  of  the  Youthful  Emigrant"  how  John 
Estaugh,  a  young  minister  on  a  religious  visit 
from  England  to  America,  found  favor  in  her 
sight;  how  by  simple  device  she  detained  him 
behind  the  others  of  the  cavalcade  of  Friends, 
on  their  way  to  Salem  Quarterly  Meeting,  and 
with  all  maidenly  modesty  confessed  to  him 
in  Friendly  phraseology  her  love  for  him ;  how 
he,  poor,  with  her  young,  beautiful  and  rich, 
blushing  as  she  offered  herself  was  coy,  claim- 
ing that  he  came  solely  on  a  religious  visit 
from  which  that  subject  might  distract  his 
mind;  how  he  held  his  advantage  by  saying, 
"When  I  have  discharged  the  duties  of  my 
mission  we  will  speak  farther" ;  how  nothing 
more  was  then  said  by  them  on  that  nearest 
to  their  hearts  and  John  returned  to  England, 
and  how,  when  away  from  her,  he  quickly  ap- 
preciated what  he  was  missing  and  returned 
the  following  fall  and  married  her.  Then  read 
Longfellow's  poem  "Elizabeth,"  and  there  will 
be  told  the  legend  which  has  gathered  as  a  halo 
around  Elizabeth  Haddon's  life,  clinging  too 
closely  for  criticism  to  dissipate  and  brighter 
growing  with  the  passing  years. 

No  more  prosaic  part  of  Camden  can  now 
be  found  than  the  crossing  of  the  railroad  over 
Federal  and  Twelfth  streets.  But  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Eighteenth  century  it  was 
an  attractive  spot,  as  romantic  a  Gretna  Green 
as  could  well  be  chosen.  Near  there  the  pub- 
lic road  from  Gloucester  to  Burlington,  cross- 


7O  HISTORICAL   SKETCH 

ing  Cooper's  Creek  at  Spicer's  Ferry,  met  the 
roads  from  the  two  Cooper's  Ferries  under  the 
tall  pine  forest  covering  the  land  for  many  an 
acre  thereabout.  Very  early  one  day  in  the 
year  1707,  Sarah  Eckley,  a  rich  young  Friend 
of  Philadelphia,  and  Colonel  Daniel  Coxe,  a 
young  Church  of  England  man  on  the  staff 
of  Lord  Cornbury,  Governor  of  New  Jersey, 
crossed  the  Delaware  and  were  married  by  the 
Lord's  chaplain  "between  two  and  three  in  the 
morning."1  The  meeting  of  those  roads  where 
Cooper  street  now  ends  has  been  located  as  the 
place  "on  the  Jersey  Side"  where  that  marriage 
took  place,  upon  the  probability  that  Colonel 
Coxe,  knowing  that  Lord  Cornbury,  accom- 
panied by  his  chaplain,  would  then  be  on  his 
return  to  Burlington,  from  holding  court  at 
Gloucester,  planned  to  intercept  him  as  if  by 
accident  where  the  roads  from  the  Cooper's 
Ferries  entered  the  King's  Highway.  Imag- 
ination may  easily  bring  back  the  picturesque 
sight — the  tall  pine  trees,  the  ground  covered 
with  their  needles,  the  yet  dark  of  night,  Lord 
Cornbury  and  attendants,  Indians  in  silent 
wonder  at  the  unfamiliar  ceremony,  the  young 
couple  before  the  chaplain,  and  the  glow  of 
the  wood  fire  through  the  deep  forest  casting 
over  all  its  illumination.  Colonel  Coxe,  after 
his  romantic  marriage,  had  his  home  in  Bur- 
lington, was  Governor  of  New  Jersey,  and 
studying  law  became  a  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State,  continuing  so  until  his 
death,  in  1739.  "He  lived,"  says  Judge  Field, 


i  Watson's  Annals. 


OF    CAMDEN,    NEW    JERSEY.  ?I 

"to  enjoy  the  confidence  and  respect  of  the 
community,  and  his  judicial  duties  appear  to 
have  been  discharged  with  ability  and  integ- 
rity." He  was  the  originator  of  the  plan  of 
union  of  the  North  American  Colonies  after- 
wards suggested  by  Franklin,  called  the  "Al- 
bany Plan  of  Union,"  proposing  it  in  a  pam- 
phlet he  issued  to  induce  settlers  to  remove  to 
New  Jersey.  His  sister,  who  was  said  to  have 
promoted  his  runaway  match  with  the  young 
Quaker,  Sarah  Eckley,  was  the  wife  of  Wil- 
liam Trent,  then  of  Philadelphia,  who  later 
purchased  from  Mahlon  Stacy  the  land  where- 
on the  city  of  Trenton  is  now  built,  moved 
there,  gave  it  his  name  and,  though  not  a  law- 
yer, became  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  New  Jersey. 

Such,  brokenly  told,  is  Camden's  story  of 
the  past.  To-day,  with  a  territory  of  some 
twelve  square  miles,  with  a  population  of 
93,000,  and  growing  steadily,  it  is  the  fourth 
city  in  New  Jersey.  Never  so  vigorous  as 
now,  its  well-paved  streets,  its  growing  parks, 
its  pure  water,  with  the  accompaniment,  good 
health,  its  excellent  free  schools,  its  liberal  free 
libraries,  its  fine  hospital,  may  well  cause  its 
people  to  work  to  make  its  motto,  virtus  et  in- 
dustria,  a  reality  and  Camden  citizenship  to  be 
so  prized  by  its  inhabitants  that,  adapting  the 
toast  of  the  old  Scotch  town  of  Ayr,  they  shall 
say: 

Here's  to  auld  Camden  wham  ne'er  a  town 

surpasses 
For  honest  men  and  bonnie  lasses. 


INDEX. 

Page. 

Academy,  Camden   54,  55 

Arms,   Coat  of 49 

Arnold,  Richard  9 

Audubon,  John  James 66 

Banks    32,  33,  51 

Baptist  Church  80 

Bridge,    Delaware   64 

British   occupancy    21 

Building  and  loan  associations 43 

Camden  County   41 

Camden,   Earl   of 19 

Cemeteries     54 

Children,    Friendless    59 

City    Hall    57 

Civil   War    45 

Cooper   Hospital    56 

Cooper,  William  9 

Cooper's  Creek    67 

Cooper's   Ferries    29,  38 

Cooper's   pine   field 28 

Cooper's   Point    9 

County    lines    41 

County    seat    41,   42 

Court    houses    13,   43,   61 

Coxe,    Governor    70 

Crockett,    David    65 

Cyclone    62 

De  La  Warr,  Lord 7 

Delaware   River    7,   64 

Democrats    41 

De   Vries    (Dutch    Commander) 7,   67 

Diamond  Cottage    29 

Dispensary    59 

Dutch     7,   67 

Earl  of  Camden 19 

Earthquakes    61 

Election,   first  city 36 

Estaugh,  John  69 

Ferries     14,   15,   30,   31,   32 

Fire   department    47 

Fire  insurance  39 

Franklin,    Benjamin    25 

Friends'    meeting    ...'. 11,  30 

Gas  supply   44 

Gloucester  County,  Origin  of 12 


74  INDEX. 

Page. 

Haddon,    Elizabeth    17,  69 

Haddonfleld    34 

Incorporation    34 

Indians     10,  67 

Jail    38 

Jones,    Paul    27 

Kaighin,  John    16 

Kaighn  School  55 

Kaighn's  Point   16,  17,  30 

Libraries     47 

Line    Ditch    18 

Mahala,    a   legend 68 

Market  houses  40 

Mickle,  Archibald   16 

Mickle,   Isaac    60 

Mile   Stone    60,  61 

Mulford,  Dr.  Isaac  S 46 

New  Jersey,   Burning  of  Ferryboat 44 

Newton  Creek   18 

Newton  Township 16,  34 

Orphanage,    West   Jersey 59 

Parsons'   Hotel    65 

Pea  Shore   65 

Post   Office    38 

Princeton   College   Trustees 24 

Pulaski,   Count    24 

Pyne    Poynt    9 

Railroad,    first    39 

Republicans    51 

Schools     54,   55 

Smith's  Island   66 

Starr,   Jesse   W 67 

Steamboats    30,  31,  32 

Stockton,    Annexation    of 49 

Street  cars   47 

Streets,  as   first  named 20 

Swedes    .       7 

Tammany,   Chief   65 

Town  hall,    first 38 

Town    meeting    34 

Town  plot,  first 19 

Trent,   William    71 

Union    Army    Volunteers 46 

Washington,    George    26 

Water    supply    44,  53 

Wayne,   General   Anthony 22,  23 

Wedding  in  forest 70 

Whitman,   Walt   66 

Windmill  Island  28,  63 


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